Islam At War

"The number of refugees fleeing from Syria into neighbouring Lebanon surpassed one million today, a devastating milestone worsened by rapidly depleting resources and a  host community stretched to breaking point."
"The influx of a million refugees would be massive in any country. For Lebanon, a small nation beset by internal difficulties, the impact is staggering. Lebanon hosts the highest concentration of refugees in recent history."
Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees

"These jihadi fighting groups come to Lebanon for food and medication. They come with their weapons and set up base camps for activities against the Syrian regime. In some cases, they even attack Hezbollah. They are trying to move the war here."
"We share 70% of our border with Syria. Many of the refugees have relatives in Lebanon, and we were happy to welcome them. But the refugees are taking a huge toll in the infrastructure, health and education of Lebanon."
Mario Abou Zeid, Carnegie Center for Middle East Peace, Beirut

What is happening in Syria has left the attention of the international agenda. All eyes have turned to Russia and Ukraine, the situation in eastern Europe that has focused the attention of the Western world at least on what is happening at their doorstep. Since it was Russia to begin with that convinced the American administration of President Barack Obama that he did not really, truly, want to be involved in yet another Middle East war, and that diplomacy should prevail, diplomacy has permitted the bloodbath to continue.

The brutal excesses of violence with the Alawite Shia Baathist government of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has dislocated millions of Syrian Sunnis, both internally and externally. The regime's military has strafed, bombed, and murdered its own citizens living in their own towns and cities and suburbs. With the use of chemical gas, of barrel bombs, of another country's military machine, the regime has succeeded in destroying the souls and the spirits of its majority Sunnis, and the country's infrastructure.

Responding in kind, the Syrian Rebel Army has done its utmost to counter the government attacks. They have been joined by thousands of foreign jihadist Islamists responding to the Sunni call for action against a largely Shia enemy. And if it were not for the Islamic Republic of Iran, none of this slaughter and destruction would be taking place. When Lebanon reluctantly hosted Yasser Arafat, the PLO and thousands of Palestinian refugees in the 1980s, Israel entered Lebanon to rid it of the PLO because of its over-the-border raids on Israel.

Both Syria and Iran entered Lebanon, and the country became a free-for-all of tribal, sectarian and foreign violence. Iran spread its vision of an Islamist suicide cult, finding fertile ground among a group that would name itself the Party of God. In response to Lebanon's breakdown into violence, the UN brought in peacekeeping groups. The United States had a large installation of American peacekeepers, and Hezbollah's first suicide assault had its world-stage unveiling when it bombed the U.S./U.N. Beirut quarters and American marines paid the price of almost 250 dead.

Hezbollah is grown up now, and has more or less taken command of Lebanon, more powerful, better trained and equipped than the official Lebanese military, and some of its leaders elected to the Lebanese parliament. But Hezbollah takes its orders only from Iran, and when those orders are received it undertakes terror missions abroad, to kill Jews and Israelis and Americans, and with the Syrian conflict, it has been responsible for many of the Syrian's regime's victories over the rebels.

Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian conflict has also brought conflict to Lebanon, with Sunni Islamists attacking Hezbollah and Iranian posts within Lebanon. And now, here is Lebanon, with a population of six million, hosting a million Syrian refugees fleeing death in their own country. The refugees arrive with no possessions, willing to work for low wages, resulting in tensions with the Lebanese.

Turkey, a much larger, more populous neighbour of Syria, hosts an estimated 680,000 Syrian refugees, and Jordan, another small country, economically fragile, has taken in 600,000 refugees; in those countries the refugees mostly are housed in specially set-up refugee camps where humanitarian aid groups and the UN help to provide the necessities of life. In Lebanon, officials were loathe to build camps for fear the refugees could become permanent. They had the prior experience of hosting Palestinian refugees who chose to never leave.

In some schools in Lebanon, there are three Syrian refugee children for every Lebanese student. Water and electricity networks, never in prime condition, are strained to the breaking point. Worse, however, is the straining of relations in Lebanon between sectarian groups, always in a volatile state, now becoming more dangerous with Hezbollah, recognized internationally as a terrorist organization, supporting the Syrian regime, inviting response from Sunni Islamists.