Hezbollah Entry in Syria Fans Shiite-Sunni Fires
The Egyptian cleric was in a fervor. With Hezbollah's Shiite fighters helping Bashar Assad crush Syrian rebels, he wanted to sound the alarm to Sunnis across the Middle East: "Now is the time for jihad."
Speaking on a Saudi TV station, Sheik Mohammed el-Zoghbi called on "young men in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen," to go to Syria to fight. "We must all go to purge Syria of this infidel regime, with its Shiites who came from Iran, southern Lebanon and Iraq," he shouted during an appearance on Al-Khalijiya TV.
The overt entry by Lebanon's Hezbollah militia in Syria's civil war on the side of its ally President Assad has sharpened sectarian divisions throughout the Middle East.
Fighters from the Shiite guerrilla group helped Syrian forces batter the rebel-held town of Qusair for three weeks until they finally overran it this week in a significant victory for Assad's regime. Many Sunni hard-liners have taken Hezbollah's intervention as a declaration of war by Shiites against Sunnis.
That could have dangerous implications not only for Syria's conflict but for the entire region.
Calls for jihad by Sunni clerics could increase the flow of foreign militants into Syria to fight alongside the rebels. Sunni Arab powers like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, who see the war as a way to break the influence of Assad's Shiite ally Iran, may step up weapons supplies to Syria's rebels to counterbalance Hezbollah.
It could also fuel the fires of conflict in Syria's neighbors. Hezbollah's intervention in Syria threatens to bring that country's conflict even further into Lebanon, where rebels have vowed to retaliate with attacks on the Shiite group's home turf. It has also enraged Sunnis in Lebanon, who resent Hezbollah's political domination in their country and the weak government's inability to rein them in.
Speaking in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Wednesday, a founder of the hard-line Sunni Salafi movement in Lebanon, Sheik Islam al-Shahal, said it was time for Sunnis to fight back against what he called Shiite Iran's control of Lebanon through Hezbollah.
"The (Iranian) occupation of Lebanon must be confronted by preparing every Sunni family and every young Sunni man to defend his faith, his home and his honor. We are clearly targeted," he said.
Iraq has also seen a dangerous upsurge in tit-for-tat attacks and bombings between Sunnis and Shiites in recent weeks, raising fears of a revival of the sectarian slaughter of 2005-2008. Syria's conflict is intertwined with Iraq: al-Qaida's branch in Iraq is connected with jihadi fighters in Syria and the two are believed to trade resources. The heightened sectarian tone across the region is likely to fuel determination among Iraq's Sunni minority to stand up against the country's Shiite leadership.
On Friday, the acting head of the main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Council, cited the possibility of a sectarian war as a reason for the West to intervene.
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ABC News - The Egyptian cleric was in a fervor. With Hezbollah's Shiite fighters helping Bashar Assad crush Syrian rebels, he wanted to sound the alarm to Sunnis across the Middle East: "Now is the time for jihad.- repeat partial quote from above:
- Many Sunni
hard-liners have taken Hezbollah's intervention as a declaration of war
by Shiites against Sunnis.
That could have dangerous implications not only for Syria's conflict but for the entire region. - end repeat partial quote from above.
- If you think the Arab Spring was chaotic, the Hezbollah Army which is larger than the entire Lebanese army going into Syria on the side of Assad is taken by Sunni Muslims in at least 10 or more nations as cause for a Jihad against the Hezbollah army and Iran whose army this is.
- This is a nightmare for the whole world as far as oil supplies go within the next 10 years because Russia is unlikely to back down, Iran is unlikely to back down (Unless they think they can get away with it) and the 10 or more Sunni majority nations are likely to send thousands to millions of sons to fight alongside the rebels in Syria over the next few years. It is quite possible that you might even see the Egyptian army there fighting Assad and Hezbollah in Force and the same for the Turkish Army which is also Sunni like Egypt there as well. This is spinning out of the control of anyone and oil prices now will surely suffer and so will the world as oil prices inevitably move upwards because of this ongoing.
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