From Beirut to Hong Kong, protests evoke global frustration

October 26, 2019

BEIRUT (AP) — In Hong Kong, it was a complicated extradition dispute involving a murder suspect. In Beirut, it was a proposed tax on the popular WhatsApp messenger service. In Chile, it was a 4-cent hike in subway fares.

Recent weeks have seen mass protests and clashes erupt in far-flung places triggered by seemingly minor actions that each came to be seen as the final straw. The demonstrations are fueled by local grievances, but reflect worldwide frustration at growing inequality, corrupt elites and broken promises.

Where past waves of protests, like the 2011 Arab Spring or the rallies that accelerated the breakup of the Soviet Union, took aim at dictatorships, the latest demonstrations are rattling elected governments. The unrest on three continents, coupled with the toxic dysfunction in Washington and London, raises fresh concerns over whether the liberal international order, with free elections and free markets, can still deliver on its promises.

THE PEOPLE STILL WANT THE FALL OF THE REGIME

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese poured into the streets after the government floated a new tax on WhatsApp on the heels of an austerity package that came in response to an increasingly severe fiscal crisis.

The protests rapidly escalated into an indictment of the entire post-civil war order , in which a sectarian power-sharing arrangement has transformed former warlords and other elites into a permanent political class. In the three decades since the war ended, the same leaders have used patronage networks to get themselves re-elected again and again even as the government has failed to reliably provide basic services like electricity, water and trash collection.

A similar story has unfolded in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, where a government that distributes power and top offices among Shiites and minority Sunnis and Kurds has calcified into a corrupt stasis, with parties haggling over ministries as services and infrastructure fall into further ruin despite the country's considerable oil wealth.

"Thieves! Thieves!" protesters in both countries chanted this week.

"Massive economic mismanagement coupled with spiraling corruption have pauperized large segments of the Arab people," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. "It is no wonder then that millions of Arabs are fed up."

The protests in both countries target governments that are close to Iran and backed by its heavily armed local allies, raising fears of a violent backlash. Nearly 200 Iraqis have been killed in recent clashes with security forces, and supporters of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group have brawled with protesters in Beirut.

"There is no magical bullet or easy answer to the severe crisis of governance in Arab lands," Gerges said. "The struggle will be fierce and long and costly, but there is no turning back."

RISING UP AGAINST A RISING CHINA

Hong Kong's protests erupted in early June after the semiautonomous city passed an extradition bill that put residents at risk of being sent to China's judicial system. At one point, protesters said they had brought 2 million people into the streets.

Authorities were forced to drop the extradition proposal , which was triggered by the need to resolve the status of a murder suspect wanted for killing his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan. But by then, the movement had snowballed to include demands for full democracy in the form of direct elections for the city's top leader.

Since China took control of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997, the city's leaders have been selected by an elite committee made up mostly of pro-Beijing tycoons. Local councillors and half of the Asian financial center's legislature are directly elected, but the other half are chosen by representatives from the finance, tourism, catering, accounting and other industries, which adds to the public discontent over stifled promises of democracy.

Underlying the Hong Kong protest movement are rising fears about China's tightening grip on the city and worries that Beijing is reneging on promises not to meddle with Hong Kong's Western-style civil liberties, such as freedom of speech and an independent judiciary.

Protesters also fear China's technology-powered authoritarianism. Wearing masks to conceal their identities, they have cut down "smart lampposts" and smashed surveillance cameras. They worry about artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition surveillance systems capturing their biometric data and sending it for processing by Chinese technology giants to track and identify them.

UNREST IN WEALTHY, DEMOCRATIC CHILE

On Friday, an estimated 1 million Chileans filled the streets of the capital Santiago, more than ever took to the streets during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet or the democratic governments that came after him.

The protests were sparked by the subway fare hike but soon morphed into a mass movement against inequality in one of Latin America's wealthiest countries. At least 19 people have been killed as protesters have clashed with police in recent days.

Protesters tried to force their way onto the grounds of Chile's legislature Friday, provoking an evacuation of the building. Police fired tear gas to fend off hundreds of demonstrators on the perimeter as some lawmakers and administrative staff hurried out of the legislative building, which is in the port city of Valparaiso.

Marta Lagos, head of Latinobarometro, a nonprofit survey group in Chile, said the protests have exposed the shortcomings of the country's political system. "There is a failure of the system of political parties in its ability to represent society," Lagos said.

Struggling to contain the strife, President Sebastián Piñera's administration announced increases in the minimum wage, raised minimum pensions by 20% and rolled back the subway fare increase.

He put a 9.2% increase in electricity prices on hold until the end of next year, but with analysts predicting his resignation and fresh elections, the consequences of that move could fall to his successor.

CATALAN PROTESTS TAKE A VIOLENT TURN

For years, Catalan separatists have held peaceful, festive marches, but the movement took a violent turn last week when protests erupted over the imprisonment of nine leaders who led a bid for independence from Spain in 2017.

That failed attempt left the separatist movement rudderless, with 12 of its leaders arrested and most of the rest fleeing the country, including former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont.

New activist collectives have emerged in their place, including one calling itself the Tsunami Democratic, which uses its own app and encrypted messages to call for "civil disobedience."

But one of its first calls to protest, after the Oct. 31 Supreme Court ruling jailing the leaders, turned into a massive siege of Barcelona's international airport, with rioters clashing with police late into the night.

The group has borrowed some of its tactics and rhetoric from the Hong Kong protesters, and protesters in both places have staged demonstrations in support of one another, though most Hong Kong protesters have been careful not to push for independence from China — one of President Xi Jinping's "red lines."

That one movement is struggling against domination by one-party China while the other is rising up against a European democracy is a distinction that has been lost in the tear gas.

Associated Press writers Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong and Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed.

Protests rattle the postwar order in Lebanon and Iraq

October 26, 2019

BAGHDAD (AP) — Tens of thousands of people, many of them young and unemployed men, thronged public squares and blocked main streets Friday in the capitals of Iraq and Lebanon in unprecedented, spontaneous anti-government revolts in two countries scarred by long conflicts.

Demonstrators in Iraq were beaten back by police firing live ammunition and tear gas, and officials said 30 people were killed in a fresh wave of unrest that has left 179 civilians dead this month. In Lebanon, scuffles between rival political groups broke out at a protest camp, threatening to undermine an otherwise united civil disobedience campaign now in its ninth day.

The protests are directed at a postwar political system and a class of elite leaders that have kept both countries from relapsing into civil war but achieved little else. The most common rallying cry from the protesters in Iraq and Lebanon is "Thieves! Thieves!" — a reference to officials they accuse of stealing their money and amassing wealth for decades.

The leaderless uprisings are unprecedented in uniting people against political leaders from their own religious communities. But the revolutionary change they are calling for would dismantle power-sharing governments that have largely contained sectarian animosities and force out leaders who are close to Iran and its heavily armed local allies.

Their grievances are not new. Three decades after the end of Lebanon's civil war and 16 years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the streets of their capitals echo with the roar of private generators that keep the lights on. Tap water is undrinkable and trash goes uncollected. High unemployment forces the young to put off marriage and children.

Every few years there are elections, and every time it seems like the same people win. The sectarian power-sharing arrangement that ended Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war distributed power and high offices among Christians, Shiites and Sunnis. It has mostly kept the peace, but has turned former warlords into a permanent political class that trades favors for votes. A planned tax on WhatsApp amid a financial crisis was the last straw.

In Iraq, a similar arrangement among Shiites and minority Sunnis and Kurds has led to the same corrupt stasis, with parties haggling over ministries so they can give jobs and aid to supporters while lining their own pockets. The devastating war against the Islamic State group only exacerbated decades-old economic problems in the oil-rich country.

"They (leaders) have eaten away at the country like cancer," said Abu Ali al-Majidi, 55, pointing toward the Green Zone, home to government offices and Western embassies. "They are all corrupt thieves," he added, surrounded by his four sons who had come along for the protest.

In Iraq, a ferocious crackdown on protests that began Oct. 1 resulted in the deaths of 149 civilians in less than a week, most of them shot in the head and chest, along with eight security forces killed. After a three-week hiatus, the protests resumed Friday, with 30 people killed, according to the semi-official Iraq High Commission for Human Rights.

In both countries, which share a history of civil strife, the potential for sustained turmoil is real. Iraq and Lebanon are considered to be firmly in Iran's orbit, and Tehran is loath to see protracted political turbulence that threatens the status quo, fearing it may lose influence at a time when it is under heavy pressure from the U.S.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah in Beirut and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Baghdad have said they want the governments in both countries to stay in power. The protests against Iraq's Shiite-led government have spread to several, mainly Shiite-populated southern provinces. In Lebanon, demonstrations have erupted in Shiite communities, including in south Lebanon for the first time.

Signs of a backlash against Tehran's tight grip on both countries can already be seen. Among the protesters' chants in Baghdad, one said: "Iran out, out! Baghdad free, free!" Protesters trying to reach the heavily fortified Green Zone were met with tear gas and live ammunition. Men in black plainclothes and masks stood in front of Iraqi soldiers, facing off with protesters and firing the tear gas. Residents said they did not know who they were, with some speculating they were Iranians.

In the south, headquarters of Iran-backed militias were set on fire. In central Beirut, Hezbollah supporters clashed with anti-government protesters. Supporters of the powerful group rejected the protesters equating its leader with other corrupt politicians. A popular refrain in the rallies, now in their ninth day, has been: "All means all."

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned in a televised speech that the protests — although largely peaceful until now — could lead to chaos and civil war. He said they were being hijacked by political rivals opposing the group.

"We are closing the roads, calling for toppling the system that has been ruling us for the past 30 years with oppression, suppression and terror, said Abed Doughan, a protester blocking a street in southern Beirut.

After Friday's deadly violence in Iraq, a curfew was announced in several areas of the south. Hundreds of people were taken to hospitals, many with shortness of breath from the tear gas. The current round of protests has been endorsed by nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has a popular base of support and holds the largest number of seats in parliament. He has called on the government to resign and suspended his bloc's participation in the government until it comes up with a reform program.

However, powerful Shiite militias backed by Iran have stood by the government and suggested the demonstrations were an outside "conspiracy." Iraq's most senior Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, appealed for protesters and security forces to avoid violence. In his Friday sermon, he also criticized the government-appointed committee investigating the crackdown in the previous protests, saying it did not achieve its goals or uncover who was behind the violence.

As in the protests earlier this month, the protesters, organized on social media, started from the central Tahrir Square. The demonstrators carried Iraqi flags and chanted anti-government slogans, demanding jobs and better public services like water and electricity.

"I want my country back, I want Iraq back," said Ban Soumaydai, 50, an Education Ministry employee who wore black jeans, a white T-shirt and carried an Iraqi flag with the hashtag #We want a country printed on it.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has struggled to deal with the protests. In an address to the nation early Friday, he promised a government reshuffle next week and pledged reforms. He told protesters they have a right to peaceful demonstrations and called on security forces to protect the protesters.

Similarly, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri issued an emergency reform package few days after the protests began on Oct. 17 — a document that has been dismissed by protesters as "empty promises."

Karam reported from Beirut and Krauss from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed.

Lebanese protests resume as leaders debate trash crisis

September 09, 2015

BEIRUT (AP) — Thousands of Lebanese demonstrators braved a sandstorm and oppressive humidity to take to Beirut streets on Wednesday and rally against government dysfunction, as politicians met for the first round of talks aimed at averting a political crisis that stemmed from a trash crisis that has engulfed the country's capital.

Activists near the parliament building, which was closed off by security forces, shouted "thieves!" and hurled eggs as politicians' convoys drove by. Tensions rose further after a morning gathering of lawmakers and senior politicians ended without results, while the Cabinet convened late into the night to discuss the deadlock. Outside the government building, protesters chanted: "Revolution, revolution against the system."

Just before midnight, the government said it had approved a plan that promises to end the trash crisis. "They are feeling the sand shifting under them," Elias Nassour, a 28-year-old protester, said of the government leaders. "Nothing will pass so easily anymore. They can't belittle us anymore."

The trash crisis has ignited the largest Lebanese protests in years and has emerged as a festering symbol of the government's paralysis and failure to provide basic services. It was sparked by popular anger over the heaps of trash accumulating in Beirut's streets after authorities closed the capital's main landfill on July 17 and failed to provide an alternative.

The protests quickly moved beyond just the trash in the streets to target an entire political class that has dominated the country and undermined its growth since the civil war ended in 1990. Lebanon has a confessional power-sharing system that often leads to incessant bickering and cronyism among the country's politicians.

Thousands of people have taken part in huge demonstrations over the past two weeks. Among other things, they are demanding new parliament elections, to be followed by presidential elections. The country has been without a president for over a year, and members of parliament have illegally extended their term twice amid disputes over an election law.

After meeting for three and a half hours, leaders of Lebanon's various sectarian blocs issued a brief statement, saying the talks would resume in a week. "They did not even bother to meet tomorrow or the day after, they postponed it for a week and came out without any decision," said Assaad Thebian, an organizer with the main group behind the protests, which calls itself "You Stink."

"They showed that they are indifferent and should not be in leadership positions," he told The Associated Press. "This dialogue is a joke. They are meeting to see how they can split the cheese," said Marwan Basha, a 57-year-old engineer taking part in the sit-in near parliament, as riot police stood nearby. His T-shirt had Arabic words on the front, asking: "Where is the water, where is the electricity, where are the job opportunities?"

On the barbed wire that separates protesters from the building, activists pinned a large banner with the pictures of the 128 members of parliament reading: "You have failed at everything ... Go Home."

So far, the only response to the growing protest movement has been a promise by the parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, for the high-level talks among the politicians. His call has been backed by the main political leaders, who attended the meeting Wednesday, but it was unclear how such talks among the same veteran politicians being vilified by the protesters would help break the deadlock.

The leaders are deeply divided over core issues, such as what a new election law would look like, and whether it should be passed before or after a president is elected. Following the meeting, a government official said they discussed the urgent need to elect a president. Adnan Daher said the next dialogue session would be held on Sept. 16.

At Beirut's main Martyrs' Square, thousands waved red-and-white Lebanese flags and chanted anti-government slogans as night fell. "The people want to topple the regime," many shouted — a chant common during the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.

Ahmad Amhaz, a 23-year-old activist who is among eight who have been on a hunger strike for days, called for the resignation of the environment minister. "This dialogue is a failure. If they agree, we starve and if they disagree we get killed," he said. His flip-flops were plastered with photographs of Lebanese politicians.

Earlier on Wednesday, 61-year-old Albert Aswad who owns a printing house, brought more than two dozen eggs and a bag of tomatoes and hurled them at the politicians' convoys as they passed by on the way to their meeting. "Politicians in this country have no morals," he said.

Just before the morning meeting, Prime Minister Tammam Salam urged the politicians to make every effort to help end the paralysis. He then called for a Cabinet meeting. "I hope at the Cabinet meeting today ... there will be an immediate solution to rid the country of garbage as a way to propagate trust in the country," Salam told journalists.

After nearly six hours of Cabinet meeting, and shortly before midnight, minister of Agriculture Akram Chehayeb said a plan has been approved to remove trash from the streets, open new landfills and allow municipalities to manage the portfolio previously handled by the government.

Details of implementation are still unclear, but the plan meets some of the protesters demands, such as passing the trash handling to the municipalities level.

Associated Press Writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report from Beirut.

Hezbollah throws weight behind protests, deepening crisis

August 26, 2015

BEIRUT (AP) — The powerful Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah threw its weight Tuesday behind mass protests calling for the government's resignation, deepening a crisis that started over piles of uncollected garbage in the streets of the capital but has tapped into a much deeper malaise.

The explosion of anger targets the endemic corruption, hapless government and sectarian divisions of a brittle country once torn by civil war and now struggling with a wave of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.

A grassroots youth movement calling itself "You Stink" mobilized thousands of people in two rallies over the weekend, and has called for another large protest on Saturday. The Hezbollah announcement of support for the protests is likely to fuel concerns the Iranian-backed group will try to hijack a rare, non-political movement for its own political gain.

Hezbollah ministers and their allies walked out of a Cabinet meeting Tuesday meant to discuss the worsening garbage crisis. Prime Minister Tammam Salam called the emergency session after the weekend clashes between security forces and demonstrators protesting corruption and poor public services.

The six ministers withdrew four hours into the meeting. Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil, whose Free Patriotic Movement is aligned with Hezbollah, said he was pulling out because of the political "theater" surrounding the trash issue.

During the Cabinet session, ministers unanimously rejected the winning bidders to manage Beirut's trash collection, citing high costs and a bidding procedure some said was questionable. The Cabinet tasked a ministerial committee with restarting the bidding, meaning no imminent solution to the crisis was likely.

Salam suggested dumping the garbage in the remote, impoverished region of Akkar, which has been neglected for decades, in exchange for $100 million in development projects as an incentive. That further riled the protesters. "Akkar is not a garbage dump!" read the slogan on one protester's T-shirt.

The trash crisis has exacerbated the long-existing fault lines in Lebanon which in recent years have pitted the Iranian-backed Hezbollah against the country's Western-aligned, pro-Saudi camp. Those divisions mirror the larger regional Shiite-Sunni divide, and have long paralyzed the government.

Although Salam's government has elements from both camps, Hezbollah regards the prime minister as an ally of Saudi Arabia. The Shiite group's ally, Christian leader Michel Aoun, has been assailing the prime minister over his handling of Cabinet and security appointments.

In a statement Tuesday, Hezbollah said the garbage crisis reflected the "endemic and accumulated corruption of the past two decades" and policies that only serve "personal and political interests at the expense of citizens." It said holding peaceful protests was a legitimate right.

A columnist in the daily An-Nahar newspaper accused Hezbollah of exploiting the "You Stink" movement for its own agenda. Tarek Sarhan, a 17-year-old "You Stink" supporter, said there would always be groups that try to manipulate grass-roots movements for their own political gains in a country like Lebanon.

The protesters say they are fed up with leaders they accuse of caring only about lining their own pockets and a system they say ensures incessant bickering and paralysis. They contend the entire trash crisis is about which politicians get the bigger cut from waste management contracts.

Meanwhile, the political paralysis continues. The country's politicians have been unable to decide on a president, a post reserved for a Christian in a sectarian power-sharing system, for over a year. According to that system, the prime minister must be a Sunni and the parliament speaker a Shiite. The current parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, has been in his post for 23 years.

Parliament has extended its term twice without elections and has been paralyzed because some lawmakers insist a president be elected first. Government has not made any substantial decisions as rival parties bicker over the decision-making process in Cabinet in the absence of a president to preside over the sessions.

Anger about the heaps of trash accumulating in Beirut's streets boiled over this week, with thousands protesting the government's failure to deliver basic services. The protests turned violent over the weekend, prompting the government to erect a concrete wall outside its main building to prevent protesters from reaching it.

Within hours, the wall was filled with anti-government graffiti. "State of Shabiha," one young man scrawled, an Arabic term for thugs. Another drawing showed a man's body wrapped in a black cloth below a caption that read: "The shroud of the state."

On Tuesday, authorities began removing the wall, just 24 hours after it was installed. "They won't fool us by removing the wall," said Sarhan, the You Stink supporter. "Remove it or not, we don't care. We want... an end to sectarianism. We want to build a state," he said.

"This is a corrupt government, an immoral government that is starving us and conspiring against the people," said Hassan Qatayesh, who suffered an injured jaw when he was struck by rocks during Saturday's protest.

"They raised the wall to protect themselves from the people, thinking that this wall will prevent our voices from reaching them. But our voices are louder than walls, tear gas and rubber bullets."

Domestic violence cases spark protests in Lebanon

March 08, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — Nada Sabbagh received a brief, chilling telephone call from her son-in-law last month telling her: "Come to your daughter. I am going to kill her."

Sabbagh said by the time she arrived to her daughter's home in Beirut, her husband had kicked, punched and beaten her with a pressure cooker, leaving her mortally wounded and bleeding on the floor. "I walked in and started jumping in shock then begged him to let me take her out," Sabbagh later recounted. She said he responded by saying: "I will not let her out. I want her to die in front of you."

Manal Assi's husband, Mohammed Nuheili, was detained shortly afterward and is still being questioned by authorities. It remains unclear if he has a lawyer and he could not be reached for comment. The killing of Sabbagh's daughter is one of three domestic violence slayings in Lebanon in recent months, drawing new attention to women's rights in this country of 4 million people. Although Lebanon appears very progressive on women rights compared to other countries in the Middle East, domestic violence remains an unspoken problem and the nation's parliament has yet to vote on a bill protecting women's rights nearly three years after it was approved by the Cabinet.

"If a woman does not have authority in her house, how can she take an authoritative post (in government)? It starts here," said Maya al-Ammar, an official with a Lebanese women's rights group Kafa, Arabic for "Enough." ''If you don't remove (domestic) violence and the woman can't become the ruler of herself, she will not be able to be able to take a decision-making post."

Civil rights activists say that a woman is killed every month by their husbands on average in Lebanon, while thousands are subjected to physical or verbal abuse every year. In the past, it used to be taboo to openly speak about such family issues. Some used to claim that their daughters died after they fell in order to avoid what could be seen as "shameful." Today, however, the death of a woman at the hands of her husband gets extensive coverage by local media and has sparked widespread awareness campaigns online.

"We are not doing anything shameful. We are not harming anyone," said a Lebanese domestic violence survivor who only gave her first name as Bahiya out of fear of reprisals. "We probably reached this point because of the word shame."

Bahiya described how her husband of nearly 20 years regularly beat her with his hands and a stick. She once went to the hospital after he grazed her with a gunshot. With the help of Kafa, she was able to get a divorce recently and won custody of her four daughters.

The woman recounted how once after fleeing to a police station, an officer there told her that she faced merely "a family affair." Many Lebanese women also see the laws in this Arab country as discriminating against them. Lebanese women married to foreigners cannot pass their citizenship to their children and husbands. The country's personal status law, which deals with cases involving divorce or inheritance, is implemented according to the person's religion and their faith dictates their fate. Some young women under 18 get kidnapped by their future husbands and get married with the help of religious clerics against the will of their parents.

The same goes for politics. There is no quota for women in parliament or government ministries. Women now hold just four seats in the country's 128-delegate. Lebanon's newly formed government has only one female Cabinet minister.

Activists are urging Lebanon's parliament to approve a new law regarding domestic violence at its first meeting after a legislative subcommittee approved it last year. Ghassan Moukheiber, the general rapporteur of the parliamentary Human Rights committee, said the reason the law has not been approved is because parliament has not met since a previous Cabinet resigned in March last year. Lebanon was run by a caretaker Cabinet until last month.

Moukheiber said he expects the draft to be unanimously approved once parliament meets. "I look forward for the voting of this bill because it is going to be a very important and meaningful step toward stopping all sorts of violence against women," Moukheiber told The Associated Press.

Some Sunni and Shiite Muslim clerics have criticized the proposed law, however, saying it dismantles families. On Saturday, about 5,000 people marched in Beirut to demand protection for women and urged the parliament to vote on the domestic violence law.

"We came down to the street because we want a law to protect us. We tell the state we want a law quickly," hundreds of women chanted. But for Sabbagh, the damage of domestic violence has already been inflicted on her family. She said she could only be happy that her daughter's two children were at school at the time of the killing and did not see their mother's bloody, beaten corpse.

"My heart is boiling like fire," Sabbagh said. "My daughter was not an insect. She was the light of my heart."

Assir supporters rally in south Lebanon

July 12, 2013

SIDON, Lebanon: Supporters of fugitive Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir held a rally Friday in a suburb of Sidon, south Lebanon, calling for the return of the Salafist preacher whose gunmen fought deadly clashes in June against the Lebanese military.

Over 200 Assir supporters marched from the Bilal Bin Rabah mosque, where Assir used to deliver his fiery sermons, in Abra, east Sidon, following Friday prayers. The supporters held a similar rally last week.

In late June, armed supporters of Assir opened fire on a military checkpoint in Abra, killing several soldiers and prompting a swift crack down by the Lebanese Army. The clashes that ensued led to the killing of over a dozen soldiers and at least 28 of Assir’s fighters.

Assir, who remains at large, reportedly fled the area hours before the military seized control of his security complex in Abra.

Source: The Daily Star.
Link: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2013/Jul-12/223436-assir-supporters-rally-in-south-lebanon.ashx.

Lebanese protesters rally in support of fugitive sheikh

SIDON, Lebanon | Fri Jul 5, 2013

(Reuters) - More than 300 Lebanese rallied in the coastal city of Sidon in support of a fugitive Sunni Islamist cleric on Friday, a day after an audio recording believed to be his voice urged followers to demonstrate.

The protest march prompted fears of more sectarian fighting in Sidon two weeks after the cleric's supporters and soldiers clashed there, in the worst outbreak of violence in Lebanon so far fuelled by the two-year conflict in neighboring Syria.

Angry demonstrators waved banners and cheered their support for Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir, a firebrand Sunni Muslim cleric.

Assir, now on the run, was a staunch supporter of Syria's Sunni-led uprising and accused the army of backing the interests of the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah, which is now openly fighting on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad.

Local residents said the route of the march passed near a Shi'ite neighborhood, which they feared could spark clashes. More than 40 people were killed in the fighting two weeks ago.

"With blood and soul, we sacrifice for you Assir," the sheikh's supporters shouted as they clapped their hands and marched out of the charred and bullet-scarred buildings around the cleric's Bilal Bin Rabah mosque complex.

The area became a battle zone for two days last month after a group of Assir backers attacked an army checkpoint in response to the arrest of one of the cleric's supporters.

Demonstrators attacked television journalists and photographers during Friday's march and broke some cameras, local residents said.

"God protect you, Sheikh Assir," other protesters cheered.

An audio recording was released on YouTube on Thursday that was said to be the voice of Assir, though it was badly distorted and therefore difficult to verify conclusively.

The message, which his supporters celebrated as proof that Assir is still alive, repeated the cleric's claims that the army had conspired with Hezbollah to attack him.

Sporadic violence and rising regional tensions have strained fragile sectarian relations across Lebanon and sparked fears that Syria-related clashes could eventually plunge the tiny country back into war. Lebanon is still struggling to heal from its 1975-1990 civil war.

(Reporting by Ali Hashisho, writing by Erika Solomon, Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/05/us-syria-crisis-lebanon-idUSBRE9640DR20130705.