Excerpts: Lebanon polarised by Hizbollah win in Syria. US. blaclists

Excerpts: Lebanon polarised by Hizbollah win in Syria.US. blaclists Hezbolla
fundraisers June 12, 2013

+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 12 June ‘13”Hizbollah tips Syria power balance,
polarises Lebanon”, Reuters
SUBJECT: Lebanon polarised by Hizobllah win inSyria
QUOTE: “Hizbollah guerrilla army a state-within-a-state”

BACKGROUNDER:

FULL TEXT:BEIRUT — Lebanese have long viewed the Hizbollah guerrilla army as
a state-within-a-state. But having watched it launch a military adventure in
Syria and brutality on the streets of Beirut, they feel ever more hostage to
the Islamist group’s regional agenda.

Within minutes of a busload of unarmed demonstrators arriving on Sunday[9
June] at the Iranian embassy in Beirut to protest against Iran and Hizbollah’s
military involvement in Syria, Hizbollah enforcers surrounded the building
and scattered the crowd with batons and gunfire, leaving one dead.

The small demonstration by an anti-Hizbollah crowd showed that the “Party of
God”, armed and financed by Iran, is not prepared to contemplate even the
smallest level of threat.

Such visibly frayed nerves in Lebanon’s capital follow the Shiite group’s
dramatically increased involvement in the two-year-old Syrian civil war,
helping troops loyal to President Bashar Assad retake the border town of
Qusayr.

Hizbollah’s involvement may have transformed the war into a sectarian
contest, pitting Assad and his fellow Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam,
against mainly Sunni rebels, including Al Qaeda groups fighting under the
banner of the Nusra Front.

Western powers and Turkey have also rallied behind the rebels, despite
misgivings over Islamist radicals in their ranks, while Russia has armed and
diplomatically shielded Assad.

Building on battlefield gains that have swung the momentum towards Assad and
Hizbollah, Syrian forces are preparing to retake Aleppo, which could be a
decisive point in the war that has killed 80,000 and forced 1.6 million to
flee abroad.

The move to a northern front comes as Syria’s war is increasingly infecting
its neighbours — Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel — and widening the
regional sectarian fault line between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

“Syria has become an open battlefront for regional and international powers.
It is an open stage for anyone who wants to fight,” said a politician close
to the movement.

For the first time since the start of the uprising in March 2011, an Israeli
minister suggested on Monday[10 June] that Assad “might not just survive but
even regain territories” from the rebels, an assessment which reflected the
difficulties the West faces in predicting Syria’s fate and weighing
intervention.

Alarmed by Assad’s advances and Hizbollah’s intervention, Washington might
decide later this week on whether to start arming the rebels, a US official
said.

What has changed is Hizbollah entering the fray on the side of Assad to
fight the rebels, while the Nusra Front has made Syria a magnet for foreign
Shiite and Sunni fighters.

“Put aside the propaganda that we’re seeing from Hizbollah; the assault that
is being prepared around Aleppo is a worry, be it in Washington, Paris or
Riyadh,” one Western official said.

“We can have all the diplomatic wrangling in the world, but the most
important element is the balance of power on the ground. That balance is
changing.”

“You have to weigh the risks,” the official said. “If you arm the rebels,
there is a risk (arms) fall into the wrong hands, but if you don’t, then
thousands more could get massacred and you’re left with Hizbollah versus
Nusra. Which is the worst risk?”

That shift in power makes it less likely that a US and Russian peace
conference planned for July to bring the rebels and the government to the
table can agree a negotiated political transition to remove Assad from
power.

Such changes in Western policy on Syria, allied to developments on the
battlefield, leave Lebanon hanging by a thread.

In a country still emerging from the ashes of its own 15-year civil war, the
sight of Hizbollah men rejoicing over the fall of Qusayr or firing at
protesters frightens many Lebanese.

Sunday’s killing of the protester in Beirut added to the list of grievances
against Hizbollah among Lebanese, who once revered it as a resistance force
above domestic politics.

“What we’re seeing is very dangerous: armed clashes, the weakening of the
state, the killing of a protester. It’s low intensity warfare,” said Fawaz
Gerges, Professor of Middle Eastern Politics at the London School of
Economics.

Lebanese columnist Sarkis Naoum said: “The (Hizbollah) state-within-a state
already exists… This shows that if they (Hizbollah) are challenged, they
will go to the streets.”

“They (crushed) the protest so it won’t be repeated elsewhere.”

Angry comments dominated social media, showing a bloodied picture of the
slain protester, Hashem Salman, a young Shiite from a bloc opposed to
Hizbollah.

Displayed alongside were pictures of Hizbollah militiamen charging at the
crowd with the caption: “The fascist assault and the peaceful protests”.

“Hizbollah has already lost a great deal of ground, not militarily, but if
you lose popular support among independents and among the silent majority,
you lose. This will haunt them eventually because there was no security
threat,” Gerges said.

Hizbollah’s participation in the battle for Qusayr is a turning point for
the group, set up in Damascus by Iran in 1982 with the aim of fighting
Israel after its invasion of Lebanon.

Hizbollah spearheaded the rise of Lebanese Shiites from an underclass to the
most powerful faction in the country, forced Israel to end its 20-year
occupation of south Lebanon, and formed a military front with Syria and Iran
against Israel and the United States.

Now many Lebanese see Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s support for
Assad against an insurgency dominated by Syria’s Sunni majority as a
miscalculation that will drag Lebanon into the Syrian quagmire, exacerbate
fighting in Lebanon itself and deepen Sunni-Shiite sectarian rifts in the
region.

“The internal divide between Shiite and Sunni Muslims is as deep and as wide
as the fault lines between Arabs and Israelis and that statement speaks
volumes about the very violent and threatening storms that are brewing in
Arab lands,” said Gerges.

No matter how this unfolds, Nasrallah’s prestige in the region is shattered.
Long revered as the Arab hero who stood up to Israel, and among his own as
the man who elevated Shiites to the top of Lebanese politics, he is now
being portrayed as the protector of Syrian autocracy and a proxy of Iranian
theocracy.

Already on Washington’s terrorism list for attacks against Israeli and US
targets, Hizbollah faces new sanctions from Western powers. Arab public
opinion has become hostile, seeing the group as an offshoot of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards, more responsive to Iranian interests than Lebanese
concerns.

Gulf Arab states have now pledged sanctions against Hizbollah members
working in the Gulf.

While Hizbollah says it strives to maintain peace inside Lebanon, its
intervention in Syria will add to pressures that threaten to fracture the
fragile state and limit its ability to contain the growing threat from Sunni
extremist groups.

The danger of Sunni reprisals could force Hizbollah to take greater control
on the ground. Its move into Syria could also trigger another war with
Israel, which has three times this year bombed what security sources said
were convoys of Iranian missiles transiting Syria towards the Lebanese
militia.

Hizbollah has said it will not be dragged into all-out sectarian war in
Lebanon, where it is the most powerful militia.

Hizbollah’s adversaries are neither willing nor able to engage it on the
streets of Beirut. The danger could come from Al Qaeda groups in north and
south Lebanon, who may retaliate against Hizbollah with suicide attacks,
security sources say.

Politically, the war in Syria and rivalry between pro- and anti-Syrian
parties have prevented Lebanon from forming a new government.

“There is a dangerous power vacuum. The military and Lebanese security
forces are overstretched in Tripoli, the eastern Bekaa and elsewhere. In
such a situation, Hizbollah has emerged as the dominant force as the power
broker and the party that has military muscle, with a power base,” Gerges
said.

The pro-Hizbollah politician said the party was in no mood to compromise.
“Hizbollah has no red line. It will cross any line and take to the streets
when it feels it is in danger.” He said politicians could “go to the ends of
the earth but they won’t be able to form a government without its approval”.

+++SOURCE: New York Times 12 June ‘`3:”U.S Blacklists Fund Raisers for
Hezbollah”
SUBJECT: U.S. blacklists Hezbullah fundraisers
QUOTE:” ‘the alarming reach of Hezbollah activities and its intention to
create a world-wide funding an recruitment network’ “
FULL TEXT:Retribution against Hezbollah for helping the Syrian government
fight rebels intensified on Tuesday[11 June], as the United States
blacklisted four fund-raising operatives and warned of further steps to
choke the group’s financing.

The action against the operatives, who the Treasury Department said were
based in West Africa, bans them from any dealings with Americans and freezes
any assets they may have under American jurisdiction. While the financial
impact on Hezbollah was unclear, the department said the move reflected “the
alarming reach of Hezbollah activities and its determination to create a
worldwide funding and recruitment network to support its violence and
criminal enterprises around the world.”

There was no immediate reaction by Hezbollah, a militant Lebanese Shiite
organization backed by Iran and Syria that Washington has long regarded as a
terrorist group. Hezbollah, which plays a broad social and political role in
Lebanon, rejects the American portrayal.

The Treasury rebuke came one day after the six-nation Gulf Cooperation
Council, a group of affluent Arab nations, promised sanctions against
Hezbollah for its forceful intervention to assist President Bashar al-Assad
of Syria in combating a two-year-old insurgency that is shaking the Middle
East.

Declaring common cause with Mr. Assad, Hezbollah fighters last week helped
the Syrian military rout rebels from Qusayr, a rebel stronghold near the
Lebanese border. That battle may have turned the momentum of the conflict in
Mr. Assad’s favor, and the rebels have sought to retaliate ever since.

On Tuesday[11June], Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that rocket fire
from Syria struck the Shiite border village of Hermel, in what appeared to
be a rebel reprisal. In Syria’s capital, Damascus, two suicide bombers
killed at least 14 people, which Syria’s state news agency, Sana, called a
cowardly retaliation that illustrated “the bankruptcy of the armed terrorist
groups and those who stand behind them.”

Its repudiation by the Gulf Arab countries underscored Hezbollah’s
increasingly problematic image in the Arab world, which once exalted it as a
liberation movement for its aggressive challenges to Israel. More and more,
the Arab states refer to Hezbollah as an Iran ally supporting Mr. Assad’s
minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, against an array of
Sunni insurgents, including some Islamic extremists that claim allegiance to
Al Qaeda.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are major military backers of the Syrian insurgents,
and Europe and the Obama administration are debating whether to help arm
them as well.

The Treasury Department painted a dark picture of Hezbollah in announcing
the sanctions against four Lebanese men, who it said had carried out the
group’s outreach in Sierra Leone, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Gambia.

The Treasury said that the four, identified as Ali Ibrahim al-Watfa, Abbas
Loutfe Fawaz, Ali Ahmad Chehade and Hicham Nmer Khanafer, had “organized
fund-raising efforts, recruited members, and in some cases styled themselves
as ambassadors of Hezbollah’s Foreign Relations Department.”

David S. Cohen, the Treasury under secretary in charge of administering
sanctions, rejected Hezbollah’s depiction of itself as a resistance
organization, noting that three of Europe’s biggest countries — Britain,
Germany and France — now support an effort within the European Union to
classify Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Such a change could hurt Hezbollah’s
fund-raising in Europe.

Mr. Cohen said the four blacklisted Lebanese had helped raise “millions of
dollars” for Hezbollah’s cause but would not further specify the amount.

“Whether this is a particularly lucrative area, as compared with other
mechanisms, is not really the point,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is
try to disrupt Hezbollah’s fund-raising.”

Hezbollah had come under international pressure before it intervened in
Syria, largely because of lobbying by the United States and Israel.
Hezbollah operatives were implicated in a bus bombing in Bulgaria in July
that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver. Hezbollah denied
involvement.

In March, a court in Cyprus found a Hezbollah member guilty of participating
in a plot to attack Israeli tourists there. That court case proved important
in turning sentiment against Hezbollah among some European countries.

Israeli officials have long blamed Hezbollah for organizing attacks on
Israelis worldwide, including a series of plots last year targeting Israeli
diplomatic personnel in Thailand, India and Georgia.

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Sue Lerner – Associate, IMRA