Recently in Sunni Category

Hello all. I’ll be in the Northern Arabian Gulf for a few days starting tomorrow to check out the training of the Iraqi Navy, the two oil terminals there (which supply Iraq with 90%+ of its income) and maybe I’ll even bump up against some Iranians. Stay tuned…

A story I wrote appeared Monday in the Newark Star-Ledger, a great smaller paper that cares about foreign news. The story dealt with the plight of the Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

Lives suspended by war
AMMAN, Jordan—Rana crosses her legs on the threadbare carpet in her living room in this poor Palestinian section of town and watches as her three children light a candle. The kids are having a pretend birthday party without a cake or presents, but their faces are painted a magnificent shade of gold by the candlelight.

Across town, Hasa and his family sit in their richly-appointed apartment, with all the modern conveniences and bedrooms for everyone. The kitchen is especially bright and clean.

Rana and Hasa live in separate worlds, but have much in common.

Both families are Iraqi refugees facing an uncertain future in a foreign country. Both want to return to their shattered country. And both agreed to be interviewed and photographed for this story only if their real names would not be used because they fear deportation from Jordan and retribution in Iraq.

Driven from their homes by violence and threats of death, Rana and Hasa also provide rare portraits of the refugee life facing many Iraqis. The two families are among the 750,000 Iraqi refugees estimated to be living in Jordan, a country about the size of Pennsylvania and choking on the staggering burden of its new population. (The Iraqis account for about 15 percent of the people living in Jordan.)

Rana’s family is struggling to fit in and faces discrimination from other Iraqis, Jordanians and Palestinians. Jordanians, Rana says, complain to her that “you’re not wearing a hijab, you’re wearing tight jeans, you’re leaving the house.” Palestinians, meanwhile, say, “You killed Saddam.”

Hasa’s family, while well off, faces difficult circumstances as well. From their plush perch overlooking the local mosque, they made a comfortable life here after arriving in 2003.

Things have changed, though.

Hasa now complains government regulations make it impossible for him to run his businesses here or in Iraq, and his life savings is being bled dry.

At the same time, he rages at the U.S. government.

“We are in such a state that we who welcomed America now hate it, and hate the people as much as we hate the politics,” he says. “This isn’t the freedom we expected. This isn’t what we wanted.”

Two families in a country where they don’t want to be.

Two families in a country that really doesn’t want them. ...

Please read the whole thing. It should be noted that two days after the story appeared, the UNHCR raised the number of Iraqis who are displaced or refugees to 4.4 million -- almost twice the numbers that were available to me at the time of my reporting. That's 16 percent of the entire Iraqi population, making it the largest human catastrophe to hit the Middle East in recorded history. It dwarfs the Palestinian displacements in 1948 and 1967. If something isn't done about this, it will further destabilize an already volatile region.

By the way, can someone recommend a good server host? Yahoo! is terrible and I keep getting 500 Server Errors preventing me from getting into the blog, rebuilding it, etc.

BEIRUT -- The Lebanese army is on the move toward Nahr el-Bared. For the last three hours, the army has been pounding Fatah al-Islam positions with artillery, tanks and mortars. Some believe this is a softening up of position before a full-scale assault on the camp, which would break a 37-year-old precedent keeping Lebanese troops out of the Palestinian camps.

Or it might be another one of the exchanges of fire that have peppered the almost two week stand-off. Although this one looks pretty big.

BEIRUT -- In my previous post, I mentioned that Maj. Gen Ashraf Rifi, the head of the Internal Security Forces told me, he "thinks the army will have to go in" to Nahr el-Bared to uproot the militants of Fatah al-Islam.

"They are very dangerous," he told me in his plush office. "We have no choice, we have to combat them."

Perhaps I underplayed his comments, because if he's right, "going in" would be a huge development. The Palestinians have run their own security in the 12 camps under a 1969 agreement brokered by the Arab League. Now, that agreement was allegedly revoked in 1987 by the Lebanese Parliament, but there's still at least a tacit agreement that the Palestinians mind their own store.

That's not really a viable security option anymore, as we can see just north of Tripoli.

Now, what was Rifi trying to say? Was he merely repeating the phrase of my question -- "Will the army have to go in?" -- because his english isn't so good, as he protested a couple of times? (He spoke well enough to conduct an interview, mind you.) Was he trying to emphasize the point that there are elements in the government that are rarin' to go get those Fatah al-Islam guys while others, perhaps Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, are willing to take a slower approach?

Or was he trying, in his own locution, to emphasize the importance for Lebanon of winning this battle? Because this is make or break time for Lebanon as a sovereign state.

If the army fails at this task of defeating Fatah al-Islam -- and I'm not talking about some mealy-mouthed "arrangement" where a few of the militants are hauled in -- it will undermine the legitimacy of the army as a state institution. And that will very much play right into Hezbollah's hands.

See, Hezbollah has often said it is needed as an armed resistance because the army is too weak to stand up to Israel. (True.) But the Shi'ite group won't put itself under the command of the army because to do so would mean that any attack it launched on Israel such as, say, capturing and killing Israeli troops, would mean Lebanon was the aggressor and as such would bring down the wrath of the Israeli military on Lebanon.

Of course, this is exactly what happened last summer, but let's not quibble. In Lebanese politics, there are apparently no limits on hypocrisy.

If the army fails and is seen as weak or illegitimate, Hezbollah has a strong argument for saying it must keep its arms for the defense of Lebanon. Now, one of the definitions of sovereignty is the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, or violence. Since Lebanon's government and weak army would be unable to claim that following a loss at the hands of Fatah al-Islam, there would be no real sovereignty here. Hezbollah 1, Lebanon 0.

One can argue whether a sovereign Lebanon is a good or bad thing in the grand scheme of things, an argument I can't address on this humble blog, although I favor the former. But it's vitally important to the Lebanese government.

It's so important that some elements of the government, including Rifi's former boss, cabinet member Ahmad Fatfat, are calling for storming the gates of Nahr el-Bared.

There is some buzz that this will be resolved in 48 hours. That may be true, or it might not be. A lot can happen in this small country in that time.

By the way, the donations are working again, and covering this place ain't cheap. Fixers, rented cars, hotel rooms, etc. all cost money and freelancing for newspapers only covers part of it. If you'd like me to keep blogging the developments in Lebanon's latest crisis, please consider dropping some coin in the donate link below and to the right. Thanks.

BEIRUT -- Lebanon is truly a strange -- yet tasty -- place. Two hours ago, I had Lebanese soldiers pointing guns at me over a traffic snafu (my driving or theirs, I'm not sure which and I'll bet neither do they) and now I'm at Julia's enjoying a righteous grilled chicken salad with a subtle basil vinaigrette.

But I wonder if my predictions of a looming showdown were premature. It's true that hundreds of Lebanese troops are ringing the Palestinian camp of Nahr el-Bared, where "hundreds" of Fatah al-Islam fighters are holed up -- along with about 18,000 Palestinian civilians. And also it's true that the U.S. and other Arab countries have sped up the delivery of military aid to Lebanon: more ammo, night vision goggles and the like. And it's true that Defense Minister Elias Murr has said that death or surrender are the only options for the fighters. Furthermore, the chief of the Internal Security Forces, Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi told me not 30 minutes ago that he thought the army would have to go in.

But that rascally sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has thrown a spanner in the works, it seems. Yesterday was Liberation Day, a national holiday commemorating the retreat of the Israelis from southern Lebanon in 2000. Nasrallah took the opportunity to warn against going into the camps, saying an assault by the army was "a red line" and that the opposition wanted no part of it.

"The Nahr al-Bared camp and Palestinian civilians are a red line," Nasrallah said, according to Al-Nahar. "We will not accept or provide cover or be partners in this."

"Does it concern us that we start a conflict with Al Qaeda in Lebanon and consequently attract members and fighters of Al Qaeda from all over the world to Lebanon to conduct their battle with the Lebanese army and the rest of the Lebanese?" he added.

Fair enough, I guess. But more to the point, his address and his opposition to a military solution will reverberate throughout the army, about half of which is Shi'a. A sharp producer I know up north painted an alternate scenario than the al-Götterdämmerung scenario presently being awaited.

Nasrallah's address stopped the state in its tracks, said the producer, because of his influence among Shi'a. Going into the camp now, with half the army Shi'a, risks splitting the army while at the same time risking a general uprising among the 350,000 to 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon. Without a unified army, there can be no unified Lebanon. The remnants of the military would collapse into militias. And that's the end of the ball game. Civil War 2.0. Talk about an ’80s revival! (Only without the music, hair or Molly Ringwald.)

What's more likely, he said, is that in the coming days or, more likely, weeks, a number of Fatah al-Islam members will be "caught" trying to "escape" the camp. The Army will announce it has caught the "criminals" who started this whole thing with their attack on army positions last weekend. Shaker al-Abssi, the leader of Fatah al-Islam, will evade capture.

And the rest? Well, it will turn out that Fatah al-Islam wasn't quite as big an organization as people thought it was.

The army would look like it accomplished something, massive bloodshed would be avoided (a good thing) and, like most issues in Lebanon, this whole ugly episode would be suspended but not resolved.

Does it solve the problem? No, but looking the other way and seeing what they want to is a Lebanese tradition.

Time will tell if the producer or the doomsayers are right.

By the way, the donations are working again, and covering this place ain't cheap. Fixers, rented cars, hotel rooms, etc. all cost money and freelancing for newspapers only covers part of it. If you'd like me to keep blogging the developments in Lebanon's latest crisis, please consider dropping some coin in the donate link below and to the right. Thanks.

TRIPOLI -- What the heck is going on up here? That seems to be the big question at the moment. Last night around 9 p.m., fighting started up again between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam. This prompted speculation that the push against the jihadi group had come, and I raced back up to Tripoli from my spot of being stuck in a checkpoint just outside Beirut. (The capital is locked down after three bombs this week, so security is tight.)

Atop the building where the television crews have set up, the owner of the building -- a tightly wound guy in the best of times -- carried around a Kalashnikov and threatened to shoot anyone who turned on their television lights.

In the darkness, you couldn't see who was who, and a rumor -- goosed, apparently by Lebanese military intelligence -- swept through the gang that Fatah al-Islam had sent suicide bombers throughout the nearby area and one might be on the roof. A quick evacuation ensued.

This morning it's quiet again. The fighting stopped around 6 a.m., and we're back to waiting for something to happen.

My feeling is that Fuad Siniora's government is a bit confused, as the Palestinian issue is a tricky one. The status of Palestinians in Lebanon is not a purely internal affair, but one belonging to the Arab League thanks to a 1969 agreement that keeps Lebanese authority out of the 12 camps scattered around the country. Further complicating matters, the camp isn't empty. There has been a more or less steady trickle of refugees getting out of the camps, either on foot or in cars, but there are still about 18,000 civilians in the camp, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The humanitarian situation is growing worse by the hour inside the camp, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and scattered demonstrations in other camps have already occurred. More casualties among civilians is going to inflame the Palestinians in Lebanon -- an already seething people who make up about 10 percent of Lebanon's population. Sultan Abu Aynan, the head of Lebanon's branch of Fatah -- the main group in the PLO -- has warned of a general uprising among the Palestinians could occur. Other Arab governments have also expressed concern over the casualties (even while they pledge a rush shipment of weapons to the Lebanese army.)

So a long siege is untenable to the Palestinians and Arab governments around the region. But leaving Fatah al-Islam alone is equally untenable to the Lebanese government. Going into the camp, no mater how carefully, will result in horrific casualties among both the Palestinians and the Lebanese army, perhaps the only state institution almost widely admired by all of Lebanon's quarreling confessional groups. Further complicating matters, members of the opposition, led by the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, camped out in downtown since Dec. 1, have started making political hay out of this situation by accusing the U.S.-backed government of incompetence and dithering -- charges which aren't entirely untrue.

I mention the various backers because solving the problem of Fatah al-Islam has implications far beyond the borders of Lebanon. While mass casualties on the army's side would be bad, in Lebanon, the fear of the "other" overrides all. It's highly unlikely Siniora's political allies in the Christian and Druze camps would desert him no matter how bad a military assault might be.

(On a side note, Saad Hariri, the son of the slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, urged his supporters -- of which there are many in this conservative Sunni area -- to help the army. Allegedly, some have taken that to heart because I've heard stories from Palestinians who say Future Movement followers are shooting into the camp at anything that moves. How do they know the bullets are from Future Movement supporters? Who knows, but the truth is almost irrelevant in this case; the suspicions indicate the depth of distrust between Palestinians and local residents up here.)

So while army casualties would be bad, large numbers of dead among the Palestinians would be worse. Arab governments in the region such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the various Gulf sheikhdoms would be seen by their own restive populations as helping a government massacre Palestinians -- and it would be an Arab government doing it. Talk about betrayal! (Al Jazeera, by far the most popular news channel throughout the Middle East, is allegedly pushing this narrative, although I can't verify this just yet.) So Cairo, Amman and others are watching this situation very closely.

This would be bad for Siniora because he relies not only on support from the West, but from friendly Arab governments who want to check the Iranian-Syrian axis. Weakening Siniora means strengthening Hezbollah in Lebanon's zero-sum politics, which would further strengthening Syria, right when it's facing a possible United Nations Security Council resolution that would set up the Hariri tribunal under Chapter 7.

The common thread in all of this is Syria. Fatah al-Islam is suspected of being a Syrian marionette and Hezbollah is a Syrian ally. With threats from the north, south and east, the little prime-minister-that-could is rapidly running out of room to maneuver.

JUST OUTSIDE NAHR EL-BARED REFUGEE CAMP -- Just at the edge of this now devastated refugee camp, the Lebanese Army is showing signs of preparing for a showdown with the Fatah al-Islam jihadist group.

Trucks full of ammunition have been seen rumbling north on the road from Tripoli toward the camp. Many of the Palestinian refugees who are able to leave have left, leaving fewer civilian targets to be hit -- although the toll on that end is already crushingly high, too high for a people who have seen nothing but pain and hardship since 1948.

Since 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, an informal truce has held between the militants still holed up in the camp and the Lebanese army, but Fatah al-Islam has vowed to fight "until the last drop of blood" (usually a sign that they're getting close to the last drop) and the Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr told al-Arabiya television: "Preparations are seriously under way to end the matter. The army will not negotiate with a group of terrorists and criminals. Their fate is arrest, and if they resist the army, death."

At the moment, it's still quiet up here. But it's unclear how long that will last.

NAHR EL-BARED, Lebanon -- Ali Said Mearbani, 64, mopped his brow and gratefully accepted a cool glass of water offered to him by a worker in the cafe. Mearbani had more reasons to be thankful, though. He had just escaped Lebanon's latest war zone.

Mearbani lives in the village of Ard al Hamra, which borders Nahr el-Bared, the teeming Palestinian camp that for the last three days has been brutalized by a volley of tank shells, 155mm mortar rounds and machine gun fire from the Lebanese Army, which is in a fierce battle with Fatah al-Islam, a radical jihadist group.

Early Sunday morning, his four-story home was invaded by the jihadis, who forced him, his wife, his three daughters and his daughter-in-law into the basement before taking up sniper positions on his roof.

"They told us, 'We won't leave unless we're dead,'" said Mearbani as he juggled cell phone calls from concerned relatives.

Three of the four were foreign, he said, saying he could tell from their accents that one was from Saudi Arabia, one was from Yemen and one was Sudanese. He said he couldn't tell where the fourth was from.

Finally, after a terrifying night with his children huddled around him while shells fell around them, the women in the family -- his wife and his daughter-in-law -- went up to beg the Fatah al-Islam militants to leave them in peace.

They refused and soon the Lebanese Army was shelling his home. He only escaped because he had a friend in the Lebanese Army and was able to tell him where they were and what checkpoint he was near. The friend, a sergeant, told him to wear a white T-shirt so the Army would know he meant no harm. He did, and the Army spirited him out to safety.

Lebanese and not a Palestinian, he praised the Army for firing on every sniper position Fatah al-Islam had taken up.

"Even when they were hiding in a mosque," he said, "the army shot at the mosque."

Walking out of his home and through his village, he said he passed at least 10 dead bodies. "They were not from the camp, so I assume they were terrorists."

Such scenes will be increasingly common when Lebanon's latest violence eventually winds down. By the end of the day Tuesday, the death toll stood at about 67 people and thousands of refugees were streaming from the camp waving anything colored white.

At least 30 Lebanese Army soldiers, 18 militants and 19 civilians have been killed since Sunday in the worst violence to hit Lebanon since the end of its 1975-90 civil war, according to Army and Palestinian sources.

One civil defense worker in charge of collecting bodies, who gave his name only as Mazen, said there were "lots of bodies" just inside the north entrance to the camp where Fatah al-Islam, a radical jihadist group with an al Qaeda-inspired ideology and possible ties to Syria, was holding out against hundreds of Lebanese troops. He didn't know, however, if they were fighters or civilians.

For the past three days, Fatah al-Islam's positions have been hammered by 155mm mortars, tank blasts and 50-caliber machine gun fire from the army, but so far they seem to be holding fast.

As the worker moved to collect more bodies, Lebanese troops rolled up to the secured entrance to the cheers of dozens of young men from the the surrounding area. Atop their armored personnel carriers, the soldiers grinned and flashed victory signs.

Khoder Taleb, 36, the regional manager for the civil defense forces, said Fatah al-Islam had "hundreds" of fighters and that many were foreign. He said that two bodies around the corner, near the checkpoint and which reporters were not allowed to see, were burned because of an explosion, but their identity papers on them said they were Bangladeshis. There was no way to confirm this.

Another civil defense worker showed this reporter a photo of one of the bodies on his cell phone he said he had snapped and offered to take the reporter's phone to snap more photos of the bodies. Taleb prevented him from doing so, however.

Around mid-day, a United Nations convoy entered Nahr el-Bared loaded with food, water, medicine and even generators for the camp, which has been cut off from most supplies since the fighting started on Sunday. Taleb al Salhani, a security officer for the convoy, said he was waiting for a cease-fire to be put in place before he would send his trucks in.

It was in vain, however, as when a truce appeared to be in place by late afternoon, his convoy was attacked while it was in the camp unloading its good. Robin Cook, Lebanon director for the UNRWA, said seven trucks went in, but three were disabled and were abandoned in the camp.

The Palestinians aren't much liked by the Lebanese, who often blame them for starting the civil war in 1975. Palestinians, in turn, aren't too fond of the Lebanese who host them because Beirut won't grant them citizenship or allow them to work in almost 70 professions, consigning most of the 350,000 refugees to poverty.

Tuesday's fighting continued intermittently throughout the day, with a long truce starting at about 4:30 and apparently holding so far through the night. Up to 10,000 panicked and miserable Palestinians have taken this opportunity to flee to another nearby refugee camp, Beddawi, also near Tripoli. Many hung white sheets from their vehicles or held white plastic bags out the windows. So desperate to escape that many were driving on flat tires.

By all accounts, they're fleeing what many Palestinians call a massacre.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 people are wedged into a tiny area, barely a few square miles in size. Fatah al-Islam has taken over buildings in the area and in surrounding hamlets, often without fully ejecting the families living there. The Lebanese Army, in turn, is shelling those buildings, and often reducing them to rubble.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has said that dozens of buildings have been destroyed with the residents inside. The total number of casualties has so far been impossible to determine, however, as the Lebanese Red Cross has not been inside the camp yet. Joseph Boutrous, the North District chief of logistics for the LRC, said his men had managed to get to hospitals 17 wounded civilians on Monday and 10 wounded by mid-day Tuesday.

"We have 15 cars waiting to go in if we get a cease fire," he said, surrounded by eager men ready to go in.

Later that day, a tentative truce took hold and his men took off. There is as yet no confirmation on the number of civilians wounded or killed.

BEIRUT -- Bombs destroyed two commuter buses today in the small Christian community of Ain Alaq, in the mountains north of Beirut.

Reports of fatalities varied, but ranged from three (Red Cross, security forces) to 12 (LBC and other media sources.) Ten to 20 were wounded. The first bomb was apparently attached to the undercarriage of the first bus while the second was in a back seat on the second, according to my fixer, who is trying to find more info. I'll update if this changes.

The wounded were civilians possibly traveling to work, marking a change in the two-year campaign of bombings and assassinations that has wracked Lebanon since the killing of Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005. Before, the attacks were either targeted assassinations of well-known anti-Syrian politicians and journalists or small bombs exploded in buildings late at night so as to minimize casualties. This seems aimed at Iraq- or Israel-style terror. Random, anywhere, pitiless.

Details are still emerging, but speculation is rampant. Was this Syria? Hezbollah? CIA? (A Hezbollah spokesman said it was the latter.) Was it a warning to the March 14 coalition not to attend the big rally planned for downtown tomorrow to mark the two-year anniversary of Hariri's death?

One intriguing connection is to Elias Murr, Lebanon's defense minister. The buses originated in Bteghrin, the home of the Murr family -- they're the major clan there -- and some have wondered if this could be a response to Murr's refusal last week to return a truck full of Hezbollah weapons intercepted by the Lebanese Army?

Elias Murr was the target of a failed assassination in July 2005.

I'm not convinced of that, as it would be a complete turn-around for Hezbollah, who have not (yet) turned their weapons on their fellow Lebanese -- a point of pride for the group.

Also, the attack happened near Bikfaya, the ancestral home of the Gemayel clan. Several of the dead were Gemayels. Lebanon's industry minister, Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in November.

Michel Murr, the defense minister's father, was at the site of the bombing and said it was a message for all Lebanese to come together and transcend politics. That's a nice sentiment, but it's almost assuredly not the message the bombers were trying to send.

More likely, it was a warning to March 14.

"They are trying to sabotage tomorrow's meeting," said Ahmad Fatfat, the former interior minister. "They are trying to divide the Christians. ... The people who are doing this don't want the people to come together and it's another link in the chain" of assassinations.

"I cannot believe any Lebanese is capable of doing such a terrible thing," he added.

Fatfat also said the bombs were placed on the buses yesterday, although he declined to say how he knew that.

Obviously, Fatfat is not-so-subtlely pointing the finger at Syria. A Hezbollah spokesman said the same thing, but blamed the CIA instead of Syria.

I witnessed this in Iraq, too, by the way, early in the insurgency. In 2004, when the violence was much more sporadic and rare than it is now, Iraqis would often tell me, "These bombs could not come from Iraqis. No Iraqi would hurt another Iraqi. This must be the Israelis or CIA."

There's always a natural tendency to believe that outsiders are the ones doing the killing. Witness the immediate reaction to the Murrah Building in 1995. Everyone immediately suspected Arab terrorism, not home-grown white supremacists.

But right now, especially on the eve of the anniversary of the killing of Hariri, everyone in Lebanon -- Hezbollah, March 14, etc. -- is banking on national unity for their own purposes. "Hariri was for all of us," as many say. Other parties -- Syria, especially, but possibly Israel -- would love to see Lebanese at each others' throats. Syria could use any violence as an "I told you so" excuse to intervene again, and Israel probably wouldn't mind seeing Hezbollah on the defensive in its own country.

(Mind you, I'm not accusing Israel of today's bombing; I'm just analyzing who might stand to gain from Lebanese discord.)

UNRELATED (?) NEWS: The Grand Mufti of Lebanon, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, the highest ranking Sunni cleric in country, claims in a press release to LBC that he was heckled and threatened by the pro-Syrian, Hezbollah-led March 8 protesters as he led prayers at Hariri's grave in Martyr's Square downtown today. He says he was told to leave or they would burn his car.

(March 8 is a coalition of mostly Shi'ite parties and some Christians, and includes Hezbollah, Amal, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and the Christian parties of Michel Aoun and Suleiman Franjieh. With the exception of Aoun, they are all solidly pro-Syrian. Aoun just wants to be president and will hitch his horse to whichever wagon he thinks will win.)

Also, in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle, I have a story about the rearming of the Lebanese factions. It might become very relevant after today.

An opposition member cradles the head of an exhausted comrade as they take a break from blocking roads in Beirut on Tuesday © 2007 Christopher Allbritton

BEIRUT -- If there was any question whether Hezbollah was in control of the situation here following the violence of Tuesday, the fighting today should convince those that it is not, and the situation is about to be seriously out of control.

To back up a little, Tuesday's violence seemed to shock even the leaders of Hezbollah, both because its Aounists and Amal allies behaved like hooligans, but also because the followers of Saad Hariri and Samir Geagea refused to back down and matched slogan with slogan, stick with stick, stone with stone.

At one neighborhood in Beirut, where the fighting was fiercest, the largely Sunni supporters of al-Mustaqbal chanted their support for America (in response to the chants of "Iran! Iran!" and "Bashar! Syria!" by Amal supporters across the street.) They also, bizarrely, hoisted a poster of Saddam Hussein, indicating that the Sunni-Shi'a conflict from Iraq has poisoned the atmosphere in Lebanon now, too.

This is about to be a full-on sectarian clash between Sunnis and Shi'a and within the Christian community.

That's why Hezbollah and its allies called off their strike after a day, despite many promises by the men on the street I saw who said they would continue the strike "for days," if necessary.

"Do you not think Hezbollah loves Lebanon?" asked Bilal, a Hezbollah supporter I spoke with as his compatriots burned a car to block the road leading the airport. "Of course we do, which is why we are prepared to stay out here for days, weeks."

More ominously, today's violence shows that Hezbollah no longer controls the opposition movement it created. Months of animosity over the war, the parliamentary paralysis and calls for changing the government has hardened positions among the Sunni, who increasingly see the Shi'a as responsible for last summer's war and more loyal to Iran than to Lebanon. In short, the Shi'ite militant group has pushed its political opponents too far.

Already this has spread beyond the capital. The Lebanese Army has been deployed to Chtoura and Baalbak in the Bekaa and there are as yet unconfirmed reports that the road to old road to Sidon has been closed. By whom, we don't know.

Four people are dead and at least 25 injured and while this flare-up might be contained, the next one appears inevitable. And next time it won't be fought with sticks and stones.

Here's the latest I filed from Lebanon. A much shorter version appeared in the Newark Star-Ledger, but here's the full account:

BEIRUT -- Lebanon's capital is once again a tinderbox, ready to blow because of political rivalries exacerbated by sectarian tensions. Increasingly, the political disputes -- which are ostensibly over international tribunals, presidential terms and the legitimacy of a government -- have grown into religious disputes, mirroring the sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites across the region.

Which leader one supporters is often determined by one's faith. Shi'ites support the Syrian-backed Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who has called for the overthrow of the current government as being too close to the United States and cutting Shi'ites out of power for too long. Sunnis, however, support the current government because it is lead by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, who is a member of the Future Movement, a political party headed Saad Hariri, the son of the murdered ex-premier Rafik, who was killed in 2005.

"The political issues are sectarian," explained Tariq Tarqawi, 20, who is, in order, a Palestinian, a Sunni and a car electrician. He lives in Ard Jalloul, a mainly Sunni neighborhood that abuts the mainly Shi'ite suburbs of Beirut. "They love Nasrallah, we love Hariri."

It's a political crisis that has come to a head in the past week, with hundreds of thousands of pro-Syrian supporters filling downtown Beirut and street clashes between Sunni and Shi'ite youths from rival neighborhoods. Nasrallah says his people will continue to demonstrate and paralyze central Beirut until the government resigns. Siniora says he's staying. Where this ends up is anyone's guess, but it's already turned deadly.

Ali Ahmad Mahmoud, a 20-year-old Shi'ite from the neighborhood, was killed Sunday night in fighting between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Ard Jalloul. Details are murky, but residents say Shi'ite protesters apparently entered the neighborhood spoiling for a fight.

"If we hadn't fought them, they would have come in here and broken everything," said Khalid Hashem, 20, a Sunni from the neighborhood. He was, he added, a friend of Mahmoud. "The Shi'ites are known for this."

According to others, the intruders chanted slogans and insulted Sunni religious figures.

"We could not bear it anymore," said one woman in a pharmacy whose husband would not allow her name to be used. "I did not like Hariri and I had nothing against the Shi'ites, but now things are changing. This is not a political demonstration anymore."

Both Shi'ite and Sunni partisans blame the other side for the shooting, but the question remains: Who killed Ali Ahmad Mahmoud?

The situation is so knife-edge balanced that the head of Lebanese army warned that his forces were being strained to the breaking point as they tried to cope with the security downtown and maintain calm through the tenser neighborhoods of the city. If the protests continued, or worse, turned more violent, the army would be unable to cope, he said.

On Monday, Mahmoud's body was taken down to the demonstration surrounding the Grand Serail, the old Ottoman fortress that serves as the prime minister's office and now, the sleeping quarters for a significant portion of Siniora's cabinet.

The sight of Mahmoud's coffin brought a fresh surge of fury at the government and protestors crowded around the ambulance carrying it. Many carried signs proclaiming Mahmoud a martyr. "Martyred at the hands of the government's militias," read one.

Almost gone were the initial political considerations that had brought the hundreds of thousands into downtown Beirut: the international tribunal, presidential terms and Shi'ite representation. Monday was a day of mourning and passion.

"The blood of the Shi'ites is boiling," chanted the protestors. "Death to Siniora."

Downtown Beirut is a tent city, with the canvas constructions lined up below the Grand Serail, like many a besieging army has done over the centuries in this part of the world. At any hour, chanting protestors crowd up against coils of concertina wire while Lebanese Army and Hezbollah discipline men keep them relatively at bay.

For Iman Fakhiya, 29, from the Shi'ite town of Taibe in the south, this protest is simply a matter of fairness for the Shi'ites, who have traditionally been the underdogs in Lebanon.

Hezbollah gained support in the south because the government in Beirut rarely provided services to the rural and impoverished South and Bekaa Valley, the homelands for the country's Shi'ites. And over 23 years, since its formation in 1982, it has softened its Islamic rhetoric, and now provides for Shi'ites when the government doesn't, such as schools and hospitals, and defends them when the elite of Lebanon won't. Even today, on online forums revolving around events in Beirut, supporters of the government often talk of the Shi'ites downtown as "scum" and dirty outsiders.

"I think my parents' generation accepted this but we won't," she said. "They want to keep us down. We just want our rights. Why is the presidency for the Christians and the prime ministership for the Sunnis?"

For her, it is only a matter of time, literally. She would stay for as long as it takes, she said, no matter how uncomfortable she was.

"It doesn't matter," she said as she pulled the blanket tighter. "We've been hurting for a long time. We are used to it."

Also, I'll be traveling for the next few weeks, so postings will be infrequent. I hope things don't get out of control here.

IMPORTANT CHANGE: Comments have been changed to allow authenticated commenters only. This means you will have to sign up for a TypeKey account to comment. This will cut down on spam and drive-by commenters. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it's a necessary evil these days.

BEIRUT -- Well, the oafs at Little Green Footballs are at it again. Of course, they never stopped. But it gives me a chance to point out the sheer wrongness of their worldview and clear up some wrong ideas about Lebanon. At the end of the day, we all learn something, right?

Anyway, LGF is warning that Lebanon is hanging in the balance with Hezbollah's coming putsch against the American-friendly Siniora government. Now, like a broken clock, even bloviating idiots can be right now and then assuming they talk enough, but the LGF's commenters of course blow it:

There should be some way to get Lebanese Christians out of there before it's too late.

I have a couple of frends, Lebanese Christians, that still have family there. I hope they get out before it's too late.

The Christian city dwellers will rue the day they let these savages immigrate. (not sure what this means... -- CA)

The Christians in Beirut have been whistling past the graveyard.

Christians are being heavily persecuted in most of the muslim countries, with the worst in the ME. Persecution.com has lots of information about it.

Lebanon
In 1968 70% Christian.
In 2006 45% Christian.
The gain was almost all for the muslims; the palestinian tsunami.

Such comments always inspire in me a Lou Reed-size world-weary sigh. Yes, it's all so simple: evil Muslims, persecuted Christians.

Except, it's completely wrong.

Hezbollah's strongest ally in its push to topple the government is ... Christian. It's the Free Patriotic Movement headed by Maronite politician Michel Aoun, a man who's so obsessed with being President that he will ally with the people who work for his old enemy: Syria.

And the Free Patriotic Movement is supported by -- by some estimates -- up to 70 percent of Lebanon's Christians. The rest fall mainly into Samir Geagea's camp, the Lebanese Forces, a party/militia that owes traces it its pedegree to the Hitler Youth of the 1930s. (No wonder the LGF ogres like it.)

This current political fight here has very little to do with Christian vs. Muslims. Instead, it's a fight between a pro-Syrian bloc (Hezbollah, Amal, FPM and a few smaller parties) and an anti-Syrian bloc (Future Movement, Lebanese Forces and Progressive Socialist Party). And this split in the Lebanese political society mirrors the greater struggle for the Middle East: the contest for influence between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

There's lot more to say about this -- I've written about it before here and here -- but I'm on deadline. More later, if possible.

Oh, and comments are still fubar'ed. Still trying to fix that.

BAGHDAD -- Regular readers know I think we've been in a low- to medium-grade civil war for some time, with the Feb. 22 Askariya bombing a huge step toward open conflict. Well, read this by Nir Rosen, who used to write for TIME before he went on to bigger and better things. Nir's a smart guy. Here's an early, key point he makes:

...Sunnis were killing Shia civilians, and Shia, often under official cover, were retaliating. I asked Haidar if the rumors I’d heard were true -- that the Ministry of Interior had been infiltrated and dominated by the Badr Organization Militia, the military forces of the radical Shia Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, or SCIRI. Yes, he said, and added that Ministry of Interior members affiliated with Badr were assassinating Sunnis throughout Iraq. Sunni officers were being removed and replaced by unknown Shias.

This jives with my own reporting on this, which will be published tomorrow on TIME.com.

BAGHDAD -- We may have dodged the bullet.

Readers of this blog in recent days know that I've been very alarmed about the violence going around me. I don't live in the Green Zone, so I'm not insulated from it as much as they are, and I don't give much heed to diplomatic happy talk. But so far today, it seems quiet around Iraq and politicians seem -- for the moment, at least -- to have convinced their followers to stand down. The Sunnis have made noises about coming back to the negotiating table and that's a good sign. There also was no evidence of any conflict between various parts of the security forces, which was a chief concern of mine, considering how deeply embedded the various militias are to the police, Army, etc.

But still... The curfew is due to lift tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Baghdad and its surrounding towns are still piano-wire tense. The potential for mayhem remains high. That said, I hope we won't see a resumption of violence tomorrow, despite the carnage of the past four days.

It is as yet impossible to tally up the death and destruction, but many (mostly Sunni) shrines and mosques have been either occupied and rededicated, damaged or destroyed. At least 200 people have been killed across the country and it's probably higher. I simply don't believe the Iraqi "government's" assertions that only a few mosques were damaged and the loss of life much less than reported in the "exaggerating" media. The track record for truth-telling by Ibrahim al-Jaafari's "government" is too tarnished to take their soothing words too seriously.

But, as I said, perhaps we dodged a bullet on this. I said in an earlier post that we would be very, very lucky to avoid a civil war. Well, we may have gotten so lucky.

This time.