Look at this: "The fighting overnight in Beirut resulted in the expulsion of a small pro-Syrian faction, the Arab Movement Party, from a largely Sunni Muslim neighborhood in the southern part of the city. The first-floor apartment that housed the party was burned, with bullet holes pockmarking the exterior and the carcasses of burned vehicles blackening the street." And then he says: "But there are widespread suspicions that Syria, whose army was deployed here for nearly 30 years until 2005 and which retained strong ties with the security services, has been manipulating its allies here to feed the fighting." Of course, all this is word-for-word from the press releases of the Hariri press office in Beirut. If Syria was manipulating the events in Lebanon, how come those who have started the clashes were opponents of the Syrian regime: MacFarquhar fails to see the extent to which Lebanese conflicts have dynamics of their own. So in Tripoli, it started with a mass protest in Tripoli by Salafite supporters of Hariri because Al-Qa`idah member, "the pro-Western" Shadi Al-Mawlawi, was arrested in Beirut. The Hariri-controlled Bab At-Tibbanah then started shelling the hell out of Ba`l Muhsin (the area where the 5% of the population of Tripoli who are `Alawites reside). So according to the fictional account of MacFarquhar-Hariri, the Syrian regime told the Hariri-Salafite camp to bomb the predominantly `Alawite Ba`l Muhsin? As for Tariq Al-Jadidah, Shakir Birjawi, was in fact a military commander of the Hariri camp until 2008, when some commanders of the Hariri militias left or were dismissed due to their abysmal performance despite the flood of Saudi cash. It was then that Birjawi switched sides. So the Hariri camp decided that no one in predominantly Sunni Tariq Al-Jadidah could stay there if he/she is not part of the Hariri camp, so they yesterday exploited the rising anger of the sectarian Sunni Salafite population, to root out opponents. So can you help us again, Mr. MacFarquhar, to explain to us how Syria is "manipulating its allies" to instigate fighting? If anything, the fighting clearly harms the interests of the Syrian regime because when the Lebanese armed forces withdraw from the North, it becomes easier for the "pro-Western" Salafite allies of the US and Saudi Arabia to smuggle arms into Syria.
PS Birjawi's circumstances of switch from pro-Hariri to anti-Hariri are still unknown. In 2008, I wrote sarcastically about his involvement in the Hariri movement, and he wrote a letter to Al-Akhbar protesting and asserting that he has become opposed to the Hariri agenda.
PS Birjawi's circumstances of switch from pro-Hariri to anti-Hariri are still unknown. In 2008, I wrote sarcastically about his involvement in the Hariri movement, and he wrote a letter to Al-Akhbar protesting and asserting that he has become opposed to the Hariri agenda.
