Lebanese City's Strife Reflects 2 Conflicts

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Renewed Sectarian Fighting in Northern Lebanon

In Tripoli, Lebanon, fighting between hardline Sunni groups, pro-Hezbollah fighters and government forces has included a spate of violent attacks in recent weeks. Editor's note: Some portions without audio.

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Officials in Tripoli disagree over the size of militant Islamist groups here and their links to international organizations.

In 2007, the Lebanese army battled Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni group with alleged ties to al-Qaeda, for three months at a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli. Last week, security authorities arrested a cell whose members are linked to the group.

But Islamist groups in Tripoli are as diversified in names and ideologies as they are in affiliations and sources of funding.

Most at some point have been suppressed by Lebanese authorities. Many are funded by Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries, and many others are said to have links with Syrian intelligence.

"I get my funding from many countries in the Gulf, but this money, I use to spread the ideology, not to buy weapons. We are not a militia," Shahal said. Many of Shahal's supporters were arrested in 2000 following clashes with the Lebanese army in the Dinnieh area, where the Salafis had set up a training camp tied to al-Qaeda, according to Lebanese security sources.

Shahal denies charges that his supporters were planning to impose strict Islamic rule in Lebanon and says that they "were wrong" to set up the camp. "They should have been more patient," he said, complaining about political and economic deprivation in the area.

Hassan's Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood and the surrounding communities are impoverished places, full of unemployed young men. The Abou Ali River, which separates Bab al-Tebbaneh from the wealthier parts of Tripoli, is filled with garbage and dead animals. Giant, glossy posters of rival politicians covering houses and small buildings seem to be the only new feature in a dusty region that is still in ruins from Lebanon's civil war, which ended in 1990.

The animosity between the residents of Bab al-Tebbaneh and their Alawite neighbors in the Jabal Mohsen area goes back to the beginning of the civil war, when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat took refuge in Bab al-Tebbaneh and bombed the pro-Syrian Alawites.

When the Syrians took over the city following a battle, they killed local leaders; many in Bab al-Tebbaneh hold them responsible for a 1986 massacre that left more than 600 people dead. The Syrians deny any role in the killings.

Many residents in Bab al-Tebbaneh say they are convinced that reconciliation has been so elusive in Tripoli because leaders exploit the unstable security situation for political purposes. Some of the fighters here say they are determined to defend their neighborhoods against this manipulation.

One Wednesday in late June, the usually busy streets of Bab al-Tebbaneh were deserted -- except for the so-called Syria road, which has become the demarcation line between Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen.

Big truck wheels closed the entrance to Abou Abdallah Aswad's coffee shop, where he sat sipping fresh coffee and holding his Kalashnikov. Guns rested on the table in front of him and in the arms of dozens of men tired from a night of fighting.

On the street, Hassan stood with his men. All of them, young and old, were armed. Their looks reflected different affiliations. Among them were Salafis, wearing beards, kaftans and short pants; others wore black headbands and army pants, and some of the younger men were in baggy jeans, with big chains around their necks.

Hassan said that he has seen his neighborhood move from one stage of destitution to another since his childhood and that he had taken up his gun in its defense several times: first as a leftist teenager in the 1970s, then as a radical Islamist in the 1980s. Most of his 20s, he said, were spent in Syrian prisons, but since his release in 2000, he has become more involved in social work and now coaches a soccer team.

"The only cause I fight for is to defend myself, my family and my neighborhood," he said.