BEIRUT: Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah’s decision to fight openly alongside the Syrian regime will increase Lebanon’s involvement in Syria’s conflict, despite a policy of neutrality, analysts say.
But despite inflaming tensions, the country is unlikely to face serious instability as a result, because none of its political forces have an interest in such a scenario for now, they say.
“Hezbollah’s public involvement is no longer the world’s worst-kept secret, and now we are in a crisis where the Lebanese are not only politically divided... but also militarily divided,” Ghassan Al Azzi, a professor of political science at the Lebanese University, said.
“Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian crisis now involves all of Lebanon because we’ve heard from the other side calls to fight jihad alongside the opposition to the Syrian regime,” he added, referring to Lebanon’s Sunnis.
This week, senior Hezbollah official Nabil Qauq defended the group’s actions in Syria, where its elite fighters are reportedly leading the battle in parts of the Qusayr area of central Homs province near the border.
He said the group’s members were carrying out “a national and moral duty” to defend Lebanese citizens living in border villages inside Syria. In response, two Salafist Sunni Lebanese sheikhs urged their followers to go to Syria to fight a jihad in defence of Qusayr’s Sunni residents. “There is a religious duty on every Muslim who is able to do so... to enter into Syria in order to defend its people, its mosques and religious shrines, especially in Qusayr and Homs,” Sheikh Ahmed Al Assir said.
AFP
