Gunfire is being reported in Beirut, with at least six people injured in growing sectarian clashes between the nation’s Sunni population and the Lebanese military. Mohammed Beiruti, a top Islamist leader, warned that all of northern Lebanon “may explode.”
Two top local Sunnis had been killed in the city of Halba, shot to death at a military checkpoint outside of the city, and religious leaders announced the creation of a “Lebanese Free Army” modeled after the rebel Free Syrian Army.
Lebanon’s complex political landscape doesn’t mirror that in Syria, but the tensions between the followers of former PM Saad Hariri and the current Hezbollah-backed PM Najib Mikati are split largely along pro and anti-Syria lines.
Already there has been fighting along the Lebanon-Syria border, with Syria complaining that rebels are setting up shop across the border and launching raids. The creation of this new Lebanese Free Army could turn Lebanon from a secondary theater in the Syrian Civil War to fighting a civil war of its own.
Who benefits from stirred up disputes between Sunnis and Shiites?
I thought there was already some rinky-dink militia that called itself the Lebanonese Free Army. If such an army were formed in the UK, I would complain to the Advertising Standards Agency straight away as the name is just so fraudulent.
Lebanonese – no, it's just those tossers, the March 14 salafists;
Free – no, it wants to kiss the Saudi king's arse and we all know how free the Saudi people are.
Army – a few w*****s running round with Kalashnikov's (BTW, that word is perfect, if you can't spell it you can't be in any army!) does not make an army.
ps I hope Jeffrey D. Feltman will immediately demand that the Lebanese government disarm this militia as it is required to do by UNSC resolutions 1559 and 1701>