Posts Tagged ‘Akkar’
You have this desolate second largest city in north Lebanon: Tripoli means the Three Cities where three separate quarters were governed by the kings of Byblos (Jubail), Saida (Sidon) and Tyr (sour) in antiquity. Tripoli is currently ignored by the government and has been for many decades.
The inhabitants of Tripoli are practically living in the Mamluk empire period, when the Near-East was ruled from Egypt, 7 centuries ago, and they wear the white “Arabic” jellabiya, as if they were part of the “Arab” Gulf Emirates, or an extension of Saudi Arabia, without the these head gears igal, just carrying long beards and stuff…
The adjacent district is the Akkar on the borders with Syria, an agricultural area and lacking all kinds of facilities. Akkar is another part of Lebanon totally ignored by the successive governments of this pseudo-State. Most of the soldiers and lower files and ranks are from Akkar.
The US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are pouring in war money and weapons into the northern districts by Syria borders in order to support the armed Syrian insurgents against the Assad regime. The weapons are shipped to the port of Tripoli and sent from Libya (after Qhadafi was assassinated by the colonial powers)
And the UN German ships controlling the arrival of ships loaded with weapons, a task assigned by the UN resolution to tighten the embargo on Gaza, has failed in its mission…The latest demonstration of force showed the emergence of heavy weapons in the streets of Tripoli…
The Lebanese army is doing its best to counter this volatile situation and to control the influx of armed Syrian infiltrators into Lebanon and the exit of armed people from Lebanon into Syria.
Mind you the government has been queasy of extending a forceful and a resolute order to the army to do its jobs.
While fighting was raging in Tripoli, a couple hundred of social platforms connected people gathered in silence on Martyr Square in Downtown Beirut
It looks as a rerun of the conditions of 1968, which resulted in the civil war of 1975.
After Israel occupied all of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem in the preemptive war of 1967, thousands of Palestinians experienced another wave of refugees into Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
In 1968, Lebanon allowed the military wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to set bases in the Arcoub region (south-east of Lebanon) and as a self-autonomous area where the Lebanese army would not venture to enter and control.
In 1970, late King Hussein of Jordan crushed the PLO and the armed Palestinians flocked to the Arcoub Safe Zone, and gradually controlled most of South Lebanon.
A year later, the Capital Beirut became the main headquarter for all Palestinian factions. Lebanon was reduced politically to a de-facto Palestinian dictate.
In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and entered Beirut and forced the military wings of the PLO to vacate Lebanon.…
And you have the same elements who supported the armed Palestinians supporting the armed Syrian insurgents…
And you have the same kind of confused and perturbed weak government proclaiming that its policy is Not to intervene in troubled Syria or to strictly control the influx of armed Syrian insurgents…
Interchange armed Palestinian movements with Syrian armed insurgents, and north Lebanon will become another “Arcoub” of Safe Zone for launching military attacks on Syria instead of Israel…and another civil war will befall Lebanon…
You read on social platforms this slogan:
Implicitly, what the youth are saying:
1. We don’t care what the radical Islamists wants to impose on us: We want them to stay clear from our safe zone neighborhoods in part of Lebanon…
2. We don’t care of the government motto of “staying clear from the troubles in the neighboring States, such as Syria: All that we want is potable water, electricity, and not meddling in our lifestyle…
3. We don’t care what regime in Syria will replace the Assad clan…
4. We are so totally apolitical…We are frankly too ignorant in world affairs…we are the vegetarian kind, the doing good for the environment and climate, the youth not meddling in our own internal political affairs, we are the worldwide connected zombies…
And that is the problem: they don’t give a fuck and leave the fuckers decide for them…as if the war will never reach them…
They prefer to wait for the calamity to struck, but they won’t wake up…They are apolitical…and so is war?
Note 2: You may read the next post or Part 3: https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/part-3-civil-war-not-ended-yet-this-time-around/
Note 3: You may read details on Tripoli and how it fared during the 17-year civil war, https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/testimonials-of-a-civil-war-in-lebanon-continue-6/
Note 4: This is a re-edit of a 2012 version
Calls for resistance against ISIS? But who is doing the resistance?
ISIS or Daesh stands for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Obama is doing his best to re-coin this name as ISIL or Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The Levant is a French term representing the current States of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Consequently, Obama is sending the strong message that the Greater Middle east plan has been restricted to destabilze Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine/Israel . Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia are to be excluded from the US Big Plan.
A month ago, ISIS occupied the large town of Ersal (Arsal) in Lebanon Bekaa Valley (30,000) for 2 days and night and retreated with over 40 hostages in soldiers and internal security forces. The hostages has not yet been freed as of now and no news are being extended to the Lebanese people. One soldier was slaughtered and his severed head shown on social media.
In the last couple of weeks, there has been rumors that ISIS is going to occupy Rashaya and the Orkoub region in south-east Lebanon. The 3orkoub area was called Fateh Land when Lebanon agreed with Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser to exclude the Lebanese army from controlling this region in 1969.
Mind you that Israel permitted ISIS to infiltrate the Golan Heights and take hostage 40 UN peace keeping forces from Fiji. The UN soldiers have not been released yet. Israel bombed the Syrian army position that controlled the passage to the Koneitra region in the Golan and let in ISIS to fluster the UN decision for starting investigating Israel crimes against humanity.
Hezbollah’s military predictions, according to internal Hezbollah sources who wish to remain anonymous, indicate two areas in Lebanon likely to be the next battlefields of the expected war with the Islamic State (IS).
The first potential moot area is in the northern Bekaa Valley and includes a vast area of barren land with rugged tracts, extending from the desolate area of the Lebanese Sunni town of Arsal, running south to the arid lands around the Shiite city of Baalbek and back into Syrian territory.
On a parallel line to the area, there are 7 Shiite towns — Nabi Othman, Al-Ain, Labwe, Nahla, Younnine, Maqneh and Nabi Chit, the most prominent of which is the village of Labwe, neighboring Arsal.
The second expected battlefield is also in north Lebanon, which includes Tripoli and its surrounding cities, as well as the Bekaa Valley.
It’s possible that the first flame of this war in Lebanon might break out when IS fighters leave their positions.
At the exit of the Bekaa Valley, there is an area suitable for IS’ potential project: the Lebanese Shiite city of Hermel, one of Hezbollah’s strongholds, and the north Lebanese regions of Akkar and Donnieh. These areas have a high density of poor Sunni communities where conditions are favorable as an incubator for IS.
IS’ potential objective in attacking this area would be to set up an emirate in north Lebanon within the Sunni population.
Moreover, the port area in the capital of north Lebanon, Tripoli, which opens onto the Mediterranean Sea, will have the same function for IS as the city of Misrata for Ansar al-Sharia in Libya
Ports are used to smuggle and receive weapons for radical Islamist groups. Misrata became a weapons store for many extremist groups.
According to the same sources within Hezbollah and official security circles, the IS attack that took place this month on the town of Arsal, from the barren lands (of Jroud Arsal, between Lebanon and Syria) is not the end of IS’ war on Lebanon, but rather the beginning. This estimate was endorsed by information from the IS emir in the barren lands of Arsal, Abu Ahmed Gomaa, who was arrested by the Lebanese armed forces.
Another Hezbollah source told Al-Monitor, “Hezbollah learned in advance that IS intends to cross their posts in the barren lands to conduct attacks on seven Shiite villages in northern Bekaa. For this reason, a few days prior to the events in Arsal, [Hezbollah] carried out military maneuvers simulating the [potential] battle to repel IS from these villages. The main objective of this maneuver, which Hezbollah intended that the people in the area see how effective it is, is to deliver a message to extremists that Hezbollah is aware of their intention.”
It seems that delivering warning messages to IS on the ground in the area has become a policy adopted by Hezbollah.
Over the past week, Hezbollah invited a Lebanese satellite channel to its military sites facing IS positions in the barrens of Arsal and allowed the station to broadcast its preparations to counter any potential attack by IS.
The sources close to Hezbollah told Al-Monitor that nearly two years ago Hezbollah opened training camps in the area outside the city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, close to the Syrian border, to train youth from different denominations in preparation to face radicals, and although the highest percentage of the trainees in these camps are Shiites, the recent acts by IS against the Christians of Syria and Iraq have pushed dozens of young Christians hailing from the towns adjacent to the Syrian border to join them.
Today, these Christian youth represent a form of “people’s protection committees” in their hometowns similar to those formed by Christian youth in Syrian towns.
The Hezbollah sources said, “There is a high level of coordination between these committees, which are expanding, and Hezbollah’s military apparatus, called the Lebanese Resistance Brigades, which is independent from the resistance body tasked with fighting Israel.”
With the growing expectation that IS is coming to Lebanon, Hezbollah’s military preparations have evolved toward promoting a plan to establish the Lebanese Resistance Brigades, which gather all denominations, to face IS.
Steadily, this plan has started to be accepted by youth from other denominations, particularly the Christians of the north and the Bekaa Valley.
A Christian youth explained why he joined the local protection committee: “What has happened in Mosul has been a message to all Christians of the East that the world will not protect them and that they need to rely on themselves to defend their existence.”
The same Hezbollah source said Hezbollah’s idea to establish the Lebanese Resistance Brigades dates back to the 1990s: “Its objective was initially to make the resistance against Israel a national resistance, not just a Shiite resistance,” the source said. “Yet, its implementation back then was constrained by several obstacles, which resulted in the idea of the Resistance Brigades as a militia affiliated with Hezbollah and tasked with countering internal military dangers.”
Today, the idea is being developed as Hezbollah needs to counter an expected war by IS in Lebanon. The new development is succeeding by establishing it in environments where there are existential concerns among Christians in areas close to IS and Jabhat al-Nusra positions at the Syrian border.
Hezbollah has actually succeeded in establishing “people’s protection committees” that consist of dozens of Christians from the northern Bekaa towns.
The Hezbollah source said, “The same issue that has faced the Alawites in Syria, with the start of the internal war, is now facing Hezbollah in Lebanon. It says that in parallel to the significant human reservoir that provides IS with fighters from all over the world, Hezbollah’s ability to provide martyrs to face [these fighters] remains limited.
“Lebanon’s Shiites, which represent the party’s main human support, are ultimately a minority of limited numbers compared to the large number of Sunnis. While Hezbollah cannot supply the fighting, which may go on for months and probably years, with martyrs on a daily basis, radical groups are able to compensate for the death toll among their ranks no matter how long the war drags on.
Starting from now, Hezbollah is seeking to resolve this dilemma through many means, including creating what looks like a resistance that consists of several denominations against IS.”
At times, Al-Monitor withholds the bylines of our correspondents for the protection of our authors. Different authors may have written the individual stories identified on this page.
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