Is This the Start of the Next Lebanese Civil War?

A Shia militant dressed as a police officer fires into a Sunni neighborhood/Photo by Pasqual Gorriz

The barricades have spread. The airport is blocked. Rolling gunfights and sporadic rocket fire have sent the residents of Beirut to the cash machines and grocery stores to prepare for the worst. But the most telling sign that the second day of violent clashes between supporters of Lebanon's American-backed government and the Iranian and Syrian-backed opposition is moving towards civil war came from a speech from Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the opposition. Nasrallah said that a recent government decision to shut down Hizballah's private communications network amounted to an act of war.

Hizballah views its communications network as an important weapon in its military struggle against Israel. (See Nick Blanford's story from yesterday "Cell Phone Civil War"). Today, Nasrallah, who in the past has said that Hizballah's weapons are only for use against Israel, ominously declared that his forces would fight an internal battle against the government if it didn't reverse its decisions to shut the mobile phone network and to remove the head of the airport, whom the government suspects of pro-opposition sympathies. Nasrallah accused the government of trying to do Israel's dirty work by disarming Hizaballah, and of trying to turn the airport into a base for the Mossad and CIA.

Just why the government chose this particular moment to move against Hizballah's infrastructure remains unclear. Hizballah, which fought Israel to a stand-still in the summer war of 2006, is much stronger and better organized than government forces, and is certain to win any confrontation. Still, Hizballah would have much to lose in an open civil war. Not only would the chaos distract them from the far more dangerous struggle with Israel, but it could also help radical Al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni jihadi groups infiltrate Lebanon.

So far there is no word yet of casualties from the clashes, which are being fought mainly by rival street gangs in areas of west and central Beirut where Shia and Sunni neighborhoods meet. Because Lebanon's constitution divides power among the country's main religious groups, Lebanon's political stand-off has devolved into a sectarian one, with the main action pitting Muslims against Muslims, mirroring regional tension as a whole.

Which may limit the Lebanese governments ability to back down from a fight it cannot win. The officials who moved against the Hizballah network are known to coordinate their actions with the United States, and the Bush administration may be digging in its heels into Lebanon while its days in office are on the wane.

Photo by Pasqual Gorriz

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut