Pushing Al Qaeda to Take on Hezbollah

Zionists and Gulf Monarchs Ponder….

Pushing Al Qaeda to Take on Hezbollah

by FRANKLIN LAMB

Beirut

“This is one damn fine idea, what took us so long to see a simple solution
that was right in front of our eyes for Christ’s sake”, Senator John McCain
of “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” and “no-fly zones for Syria” notoriety,
reportedly demanded to know from Dennis Ross during a recent Washington
Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) brain storming session in Washington
DC.

 Ross, a founder of WINEP with Israeli government start up cash (presumably
reimbursed unknowingly by American taxpayers) and currently WINEP’s
“Counselor”, reportedly responded to the idea of facilitating Al Qeada to
wage jihad against Hezbollah with the comment: “Shiites aren’t the only ones
seeking death to demonstrate their ‘resistance’ to whatever. Plenty of other
Muslims also want to die as we saw last week in Boston. Let ‘em all go at it
and Israel can sweep out their s— when it’s over.”

One Congressional staffer attending the WINEP event emailed me, “Dennis
spoke in jest — well I assumed he did — but who knows anymore? Things are
getting ever crazier inside some of these pro-Israel think-tanks around here.”

Featured on the front page of its April 25 edition, the Zionist-compliant New
York Times writes that the Assad regime is apparently recovering but, “it
must be understood that for all of the justified worries about the (al Qaeda
affiliated) rebels “Assad remains an ally of Iran and Hezbollah. “

Quote appears broken. Couldn’t find that quote in the Times for 4/25.
Need exact article url to get quote correct.

The Times adopts the views of Islamophobe, Daniel Pipes, who recommends that
the US try to keep the two sides in Syria fighting as long as possible until
they destroy each other.  Pipes, now serving as an advisor to John McClain,
wrote in the Washington Times on April 11, “Evil forces pose less danger to
us when they make war on each other. This keeps them focused locally, and it
prevents either one from emerging victorious and thereby posing a greater
danger. Western powers should guide enemies to a stalemate by helping
whichever side is losing, so as to prolong their debilitating conflict.”

Both Jeffrey Feltman, U.N. Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs and
Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N, have at a minimum
impliedly joined in the intriguing idea of siccing Jabhat al Nusra on the
Party of God. This scheme, if launched, would be Feltman’s 14th attempt to
topple Hezbollah and defeat the Lebanese National Resistance to the
occupation of Palestine since he first arrived in Beirut from Tel Aviv in
2005 to become US Ambassador to Lebanon.  This observer, among others in
this region sense that given the aura still enveloping the American Embassy
here,  that Jeffrey never really left his Lebanese ambassadorial post and
continues to occupy this position from his new UN office.

Isn’t Hezbollah the Lebanese National Resistance to the occupation of Lebanon?

This week Feltman warned that the spillover of Syria’s war continues to be
felt in Lebanon as Susan Rice, echoed him and condemned Hezbollah for
“undermining the country’s “dissociation policy.” The latter being a bit
obscure in meaning but connoting something like sitting around doing nothing
while this country is being shelled by jihadists from among the 23 countries
currently fighting in Syria.  Feltman informed the media on 4/22/13 that
“The Secretary-General is concerned by reports that Lebanese are fighting in
Syria both on the side of the regime and on the side of the opposition,
hopes that the new government will find ways to promote better compliance by
all sides in Lebanon with the “disassociation policy.”  

Given current divisions in Lebanon that will not happen anymore than
Lebanon’s June 9th Parliamentary elections will be held on time.

For her part, Susan lectured the UN Security Council that “Hezbollah
actively enables Assad to wage war on the Syrian people by providing money,
weapons, and expertise to the regime in close coordination with Iran.” This
position was expressed also through a statement by US. State Department
spokesman , Patrick Ventrell, who said that Washington “has always been
clear concerning Hezbollah’s shameful role and the support it is providing
for the Syrian regime and the violence it is inducing in Syria.” Ventrell
added: “We were clear from the start concerning the destructive role played
by Iran as well as the Iranian role.”

Several Israeli agents in Congress are today promoting a Jabhat el
Nusra-Hezbollah war even as the Obama administration terror-lists the
jihadist group. Meanwhile, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), McCain’s neocon
Islamaphobe acolyte, goes a bit further and explains to Fox News, once Assad
falls and Hezbollah is out of the picture “We can deal with these (jihadist)
fellas.”  

Recent history in Libya instructs otherwise. As Turkish commentator Cihan
Celik recently noted: “A divorce with al-Nusra will not be easy in Syria”

The past two years in Libya, that shadow of a country, reveals countless
examples, three witnessed firsthand by this observer, during the long hot
summer of 2011. What we saw was Gulf sponsors and funders offering young
men, often unemployed, $ 100 per month, free cigarettes, and a Kalashnikov
to do jihad.  Plenty down and out lads still accept these offers in Libya,
as they do in Syria. One reason why the militias proliferated so quickly in
Libya and never melted away was the phenomenon of a wannabe jihadists
deciding to be a leader and recruiting perhaps a brother or two, maybe a few
cousins or tribe members, and presto, they have created a militia with power
they never dreamed of. Their new life can offer many perceived benefits
 from running rough shod over the civilian populations and setting up myriad
mini but potent criminal enterprises specializing in kidnappings, robberies,
drugs, trafficking in women, and assassinations for cash.  How many of these
young men have turned in their weapons in Libya and returned to their former
lives?   Or will do so when instructed by the likes of McCain or Graham?

On 4/24/13 Jabhat Al-Nusra Front intensified its threats to officials here
including the Lebanese president by releasing a challenge from its media
office: “…we inform you – and you may think of that as a warning or an
ultimatum – that you must take immediate measures to restrain Hezbollah,
otherwise, the fire will reach Beirut. If you do not abide by this within 24
hours, we will consider that you are taking part in the massacres committed
by the Hezbollah members and we will unfortunately have to burn everything
in Beirut.” In addition they are calling for Jihad and the establishment of
the “Resistance Factions for Jihad against the Regime in Syria” and also in
Saida and Tripoli, Lebanon.

Israeli officials appear to be in agreement with the Ross/Pipes proposal to
arrange for Al Qeada to launch a war against Hezbollah.  The Director for
External Affairs at “The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African
Studies, repeatedly claimed that the Shia are the real threat to Israel, not
the Sunni and with the least threat coming from the Gulf monarchs.  He
offered the view recently that “Israel is now a partner of the Sunni Arab
states.”  Indeed, Israel hopes that Hezbollah will forget Israel when tasked
with trying repel Al Nusra and other al Qaeda affiliate attacks.

According to various Israel officials who have issued statements on the
subject, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and several other members of the
Arab League constitute an “alliance of anxiety for Israel” because they
claim that “Sunni Arabs are not as competent as the Shia and Iran and as a
result they express doubts that Israel can rely on the Sunni states in the
same way that the Sunni states can rely on Israel.”

In a documentary about the Iraq war, an American soldier explains: 
“Actually, we don’t really have much of a problem with the Sunnis.  It’s the
Shias who we are afraid of.  The problem has something to do with their
leader who was killed centuries ago and these fellas are willing to lay
their life down for the guy.  Anyhow, that is what they told us in Special
Ops class.”

Al Nusra fighters currently occupying parts the south west areas of Yarmouk
Palestinian refugee camp in south Damascus, recently expressed eagerness to
fight Hezbollah which they claim would give them credibility with Sunni
Muslims and, oddly, in this observers view, “credibility with western
countries”, who supposedly are al Qaeda’s sworn enemies. It’s sometimes hard
to know who precisely is whose enemy these days in Syria as the rebels
continue using areas east and southwest of Damascus as rear bases and as
gateways into the capital.

Despite boasts to the contrary from Jihadist types in Syria and Lebanon, it
is not clear to this observer if Jihadist and al Qaeda-affiliated groups
living among Hezbollah communities in Lebanon like Fatah al Islam, Jund al
Sham or Osbat al Ansar which have been here for years would actually join
the Zionist promoted anti-Hezbollah jihad.

But it is evident that some Lebanese Islamists and jihadists directly
connected to al Qaeda do have the ability to target Hezbollah.   Elements
from each of these groups are startling to associate and identify with Jabhat
al Nusra, inspired partly by their successful military operations in Syria.

Again, we saw the same thing in Libya.  Enthusiastic, ambitious young men
who want to improve their lot in life try to go with a winner.  According to
sources in the Ain al Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, jihadist leaders such
as Haytham and Mohammed al Saadi, Tawfic Taha, Oussama al Shehabi and Majed
al Majed are recruiting followers and fighters in Lebanon and offer a ticket
out the the squalid army-surrounded, Syrian-refugee-inflated camp.

Homs-based media activist Mohammad Radwan Raad claims that “the embattled
residents of the rebel-controlled Homs province town of Al-Qusayr welcome
Saida, Lebanon-based Sunni Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir’s call for Jihad in Syria.
Claims Raad, “Al-Qusayr residents welcome Assir’s call and hope the Lebanese
people help kick out Hezbollah members in the area…We need anyone who can
get rid of them.” This week Assir urged his followers to join Syrian
rebels fighting troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese
Shiite movement Hezbollah. Al-Qusayr has been under rebel control for more
than a year and on the scene reports indicate that it is about to be
returned to central government control.

In response, two Salafist Sunni Lebanese sheikhs urged their followers to go
to Syria to fight a jihad (religious war) in defense 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
told his followers. For now, experts say, such calls on the part of
Lebanon’s Salafists are largely bluster because the movement is far from
able to wield either the arsenal or the fighting forces of Hezbollah.

Local analysts like Qassem Kassir argue that Jabhat al Nusra and friends are
not organized enough to fight against Hezbollah in a conventional war, but
they could cause great damage by organizing bomb attacks against the Party
of God’s bases and militants. The latter would be enough initially for Ross
and WINEP and their Zionist handlers. Creating chaos in Lebanon being one of
their goals but more importantly weakening the National Lebanese Resistance
led by Hezbollah and also challenging Syria and Iran.

In a recent speech, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah offered his
party’s view about a Western-promoted Sunni-Shia clash, with Al-Nusra,
AlQaida and all the groups which flocked to Syria, saying that what was wanted
of them was to kill and get killed in Syria, in a massacre which will only serve
the enemies of the Arabs and Muslims.

The coming months will reveal to us if  the several pro-Zionist Arab regimes
as well as Islamophobes, including those at WINEP and other Israel-first
think-tanks, are delusional in believing that John McCain’s “simple solution”
to those resisting the Zionist occupation of Palestine, would be to assist 
Jabhat el Nusra type jihadists to make war against Hezbollah. 

Whether they could defeat Hezbollah is uncertain but whether Jabhat al Nusra
and friends are capable of igniting yet another catastrophe in this region is
the looming question.

 

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and Syria and is reachable c/o
[email protected]

Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon

Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp
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