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Gary C. Gambill

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Vol. 3   No. 2

August 2008


Return of the Pink Panthers?
by Riad Yazbeck
Riad Yazbeck is a program coordinator for UNAUSA's Global Classrooms program at the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut. He obtained an MA in International Affairs from LAU in June 2008.

soldiers in Tripoli

Recent outbreaks of sectarian violence in Tripoli have cast the spotlight on one of Lebanon's smaller confessional communities that Western media outlets have seldom had cause to mention. As members of the same religious sect that dominates neighboring Syria, Lebanese Alawites have both a powerful protector and a crippling liability. In a climate of growing Sunni Islamic fundamentalism and lingering hostility toward Syria, their future is uncertain.

Background

Alawites are an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam, though their beliefs and practices reflect the infusion of Christian and pagan influences (for this reason they are typically viewed as heretical by Sunni Muslims). The majority of Alawites live in Syria, where they comprise 12% of the population. Syrian Alawites were a predominantly rural underclass prior to the Baath Party's seizure of power in 1963. During the reign of President Hafez Assad (1970-2000), they came to dominate senior military, political and intelligence posts.

Lebanon's tiny Alawite community, estimated to number about 40,000-60,000,[1] is concentrated in the northern port of Tripoli and a few villages in Akkar near the border with Syria. Although Alawites have lived in Lebanon for centuries, their numbers swelled as a result of twentieth century immigration from Syria. During the first three decades after Lebanon's 1943 independence they were not legally recognized as a distinct community and their contribution to national politics was minimal.

In the early 1970s, the late Shiite cleric Musa Sadr, then the Chairman of Lebanon's Supreme Islamic Shiite Council (SISC), reached out to Lebanese Alawites, seeing them as fellow victims of sectarian prejudices and valuable allies in furthering his community's emerging political clout. His efforts to bring them under the jurisdiction of the SISC (which governs marriage, inheritance, and other matters of personal status for Lebanese Shiites) initially met with resistance, both from Alawite religious and tribal leaders in Syria and from a new current of Lebanese Alawites who wanted to win separate legal recognition, the Alawite Youth Movement of Ali Eid.

This changed in 1973, when Sunni protests swept through Syria in reaction to Assad's introduction of a new Constitution that failed to specify Islam as the official religion of the state. With the Syrian president desperately in need of a way to legitimize his community's Islamic credentials, an arrangement was worked out whereby Sadr officially proclaimed Alawites to be a Shiite Muslim sect, in exchange for winning SISC jurisdiction over Lebanese Alawites and backing from Damascus.[2]

In view of the rapid political and economic advancement of Alawites in Assad's Syria, Lebanese Alawites flocked to pro-Syrian political organs, such as the Lebanese branch of the Baath Party, the Communist Party, and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP). After the outbreak of civil war in 1975 and the entry of Syrian troops into Lebanon a year later, the Arab Democratic Party (ADP) was founded. Although ostensibly non-sectarian and nominally led by the polished Sunni lawyer Nassib Khatib, the ADP was really led by Ali Eid and other Lebanese Alawites close to Hafez Assad's brother, Rifaat.

As the conflict between the Assad regime and the (Sunni) Muslim Brotherhood ripped Syria apart in the late 1970s, tensions between Sunnis and Alawites in Tripoli boiled over repeatedly, especially between the Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Muhsin and the adjacent Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tibbaneh, a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism. In 1981, the ADP formed a militia called the Arab Knights, popularly known as the "Pink Panthers" (due to the ravages of improper laundering on their trademark red fatigues). The ADP functioned largely as an adjunct of the Syrian army, operating in areas where Syrian troops were not (yet) deployed - in particular, West Beirut and Tripoli.

In Tripoli, the Pink Panthers and other Syria-backed militias struggled for supremacy against the radical Sunni Islamist Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami (Islamic Unification Movement). Both sides committed horrendous atrocities that are vividly remembered today. After Syria's capture of the city in 1985, the ADP enjoyed free reign.

After the war ended with Syrian forces fully in control of Lebanon (apart from the Israeli occupied zone in south Lebanon), Alawites were given two seats in the 128-member parliament. However, the ADP went into political eclipse as Rifaat Assad had fallen from grace in Syria. Syrian officials in charge of the "Lebanon file" shifted their support to other Alawite leaders who had not incurred the animosity of Sunnis, such as wealthy Tripoli businessman Ahmad Hbous, who won election to parliament in 1996 and 2000.

After the Syrian Withdrawal

The departure of Syrian forces from Lebanon left many Alawites acutely aware of their insecurity. Due to the exodus of Christians from Tripoli during Tawhid's reign of terror in the early 1980s, the city was now overwhelmingly Sunni and seethed with Salafi fundamentalist movements deeply hostile to Alawites. Because both of the community's parliamentary seats are in majority Sunni districts, they were easily captured in the May-June 2005 elections by two marginal Alawites picked by Saad Hariri's Sunni-led Future Movement, Badr Wannus and Mustafa Hussein. On top of feeling disenfranchised politically, most Alawites remained desperately poor. Jabal Muhsin is one of the most impoverished areas of the country, with adult unemployment reaching as high as 60% and, according to UNICEF, a school dropout rate of about 80%.[3]

The vast majority of Alawites have sided with Lebanon's mainly Shiite and Christian opposition bloc against the Sunni dominated March 14 coalition. In the face of growing sectarian and political polarization in Lebanon, it became virtually impossible for any Alawite public figure to defy this consensus. Even MP Hussein eventually withdrew from Hariri's Future Movement last year and joined the opposition. He accused March 14 of subjecting Lebanon to American "tutelage," while visiting Damascus and warmly praising Assad.[4]

The ADP is back on the scene in Tripoli, now led by Eid's son, Rifaat (who has apparently severed relations with his exiled Syrian namesake and supports Syrian President Bashar Assad). As Lebanon's political crisis deepened and security conditions deteriorated, the ADP steadily built up a militia, presumably with help from the Syrians. The exact timeline is unclear, but its rearmament accelerated after the uprising by the Sunni jihadist Fatah al-Islam in the nearby Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp during the summer of 2007. One of the captured Fatah al-Islam militants told Lebanese investigators that the group intended to attack Alawites in Jabal Muhsin.[5]

In addition to Salafi-jihadist networks, several other armed forces were rising in Tripoli. Tawhid reconstituted a militia. Oddly enough, the movement (minus some prominent defections) is now politically aligned with Syrian-backed groups, though this loyalty oscillates with sectarian solidarities that bring it back closer to its Sunni constituency. The most recent addition is the Tripoli Brigades (afwaj tarablus), a militia loyal to Hariri that formed last year. In the nearby Beddawi refugee camp, there are a number of armed Palestinian factions with complex Lebanese and regional affiliations.

With the onset of a national political crisis in November 2006, violence broke out sporadically in Tripoli. In January 2007, as opposition demonstrators burned tires and blocked roads to protest the March 14 coalition's refusal to form a national unity cabinet, Sunni and Alawite militiamen clashed in the city, leaving two people dead. Violence in Tripoli erupted again in May 2008, during Hezbollah's tour de force aimed at forcing the Lebanese government to abandon efforts to disable its cable communication network. Clashes between Sunni and Alawite gunmen left at least one person dead.

Although the Doha Accord brought Lebanon's political crisis to an end and eased tensions between March 14 and the opposition, violence continued to flare up in Tripoli. On June 22, fighting between Alawite and Sunni gunmen erupted, leaving nine people dead before the Lebanese Army moved in to secure the peace. A second round of fighting broke out on July 25, also leaving nine people dead. In late July, UNICEF estimated that 3,500 Alawite families and 2,300 Sunni families had fled their homes.[6]

An Uncertain Future

It is not clear who bears ultimate responsibility for the recurrent outbreaks of fighting in Tripoli. Supporters of the March 14 coalition accuse the Alawites of following orders from Syria to stir up trouble. Supporters of the opposition argue that the last thing Assad wants to see is an outbreak of Sunni-Alawite sectarian violence in Lebanon that might spill over into Syria. For his part, Eid claims that the recent outbreaks of violence were instigated by Salafi-jihadist militants.

Whatever the cause of the violence, the position of Lebanon's tiny Alawite community has never been more precarious. Radical Salafi preachers in Tripoli have threatened to expel Alawites from Lebanon.[7] Even mainstream Salafi preachers barely hide their contempt.[8]

In the face of such hostility, the vast majority of Alawites feel that their alignment with Syria and Hezbollah is the only way to guarantee their survival in these difficult times. For the time being, the ADP appears to be at least as militarily powerful as its adversaries. According to a security source close to the opposition, its militia is estimated to have between 1,000 and 2,000 men. Moreover, it is well equipped, and occupies a strategic high ground overlooking the whole city of Tripoli. However, Jabal Muhsin is surrounded on all sides by an increasingly hostile Sunni majority. If Lebanon descends into civil war and the Alawites' enclave is cut off from their powerful allies, the results could be catastrophic.

Notes

  [1] Youssef Chahid Doueihy, The Lebanese 1907 - 2006. Beirut: [self-published], 2007. The author lists the number of Alawite identity cards issued by the Interior Ministry as 37,474. Estimates of 50,000 and 60,000 are more common in Western news reports.
  [2] See Martin Kramer, Shi'ism, Resistance, and Revolution (Colorado: Westview Press, 1987). pp. 237-254.
  [3] LEBANON: Displaced families struggle on both sides of sectarian divide, IRIN, 31 July 2008.
  [4] "Akkar MP abandons March 14 Forces over 'widening gaps'," The Daily Star, 5 June 2007.
  [5] Al-Mustaqbal (Beirut), 7 June 2007.
  [6] LEBANON: 'The rocket came through the window at dawn', IRIN, 29 July 2008.
  [7] Al-Nahar (Beirut), 23 June 2008.
  [8] Sheikh Ibrahim Salih, a prominent cleric in Tripoli, refused to characterize Sunni-Alawite clashes as sectarian because "the Alawites are not originally affiliated to Shiism" (i.e. aren't a bona fide Islamic sect). Al-Diyar (Beirut), 26 Mar 2007.

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