The cauldron may bubble over again
May 24th 2007 | NAHR AL-BARED, TRIPOLI
From The Economist

The latest outbreak of violence in northern Lebanon menaces the whole region

FIGHTING raged this week between the Lebanese army and radical Islamists entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp, leaving scores dead and hundreds wounded. Beginning on May 20th, the thud of explosions and clatter of machine-gun fire echoed into the hills above the Nahr al-Bared camp, near the northern city of Tripoli, as troops struggled to root out several hundred heavily armed fighters. By mid-week, many of the camp's 30,000 or so residents had fled during lulls in the shooting. But as edgy, exhausted army conscripts tightened their siege, and the militants inside declared a fight to the death, the battle looked set to continue.

The clashes started after police stormed a flat in Tripoli, following leads that tied a recent series of bank robberies to a radical jihadist faction known as Fatah al-Islam. Militants responded by attacking army posts around the camp, where growing numbers of gunmen have appeared since the group formed last year. Though considered small and marginal, Fatah al-Islam has been linked to at least one of the sporadic bomb attacks that have hit Christian areas of Lebanon in recent years. But it denied responsibility for night-time blasts that struck two commercial streets in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, this week, killing an elderly woman.

The violence comes at a difficult time for Lebanon, which was shaken by a devastating war with Israel last summer. Since then, its Western-backed government has been locked in a stand-off against a pro-Syrian coalition, led by the Shia party, Hizbullah, over the opposition's demand for a veto-wielding share of cabinet seats. Though the fighting in the north pits a widely disparaged Sunni Muslim group against a national army that embraces all Lebanon's faiths, many Lebanese view the clash through the prism of this wider political contest.

Government officials charge that Syria, which ended a 29-year military presence in Lebanon only in 2005, is sowing such strife in a bid to regain its power-broking role. Another alleged Syrian aim is to block the setting up of an international tribunal to try suspects in a string of political murders beginning with the assassination in February 2005 of Rafik Hariri, a five-times Lebanese prime minister. With the pro-Syrian opposition refusing to back a law to create the court, the UN Security Council is now debating whether to establish it under Chapter 7 of the UN charter, which could mandate sanctions against countries that refuse to co-operate.

Syria adamantly denies any link to the murders or to the current violence. Yet it is true that at the time of Hariri's killing he was trying to rally political forces to challenge Syria's dominance. Mass protests after his death shamed Syria into withdrawing its troops but it left in place many forces that concur with Syria's view of Lebanon as a bulwark against Western influence. Bar last summer's war, when Israeli bombs ravaged Shia areas, nearly all political violence since the Syrian withdrawal has targeted anti-Syrian activists.

Before Syria's departure, most of Lebanon's 12 Palestinian camps, which under a 1969 agreement remain off-limits to Lebanese authority, were controlled by Syrian military intelligence. Syria is also known to have sponsored jihadist groups, unleashing them not only in Lebanon but against American troops in Iraq.

The leader of Fatah al-Islam, whose ideology is close to al-Qaeda's, was in Syrian custody before resurfacing in Lebanon last year. Since then, the group has recruited not only among Lebanon's 400,000-odd Palestinian refugees, many of whom are destitute and disillusioned by the failure of secular groups to better their lot, but also among international jihadists, including Saudis, Algerians and Yemenis, most of whom would have entered Lebanon across Syria's nearby border.

When the violence erupted, Palestinian factions united with Lebanon's rival parties, including Hizbullah, in rare unanimous condemnation of Fatah al-Islam as a dangerous and alien force. But as the army, stung by the loss so far of 32 soldiers, prolonged its shelling of the crowded camp, anxiety grew over the danger to civilians. At several other refugee camps, themselves housing a growing range of radical groups, residents set tyres on fire in protest.

Their anger is understandable. With at least 80 people known to have died so far, this has been the bloodiest internal strife in Lebanon since the end of its civil war of 1975-90. Entire streets of the camp were destroyed as the army pounded the maze of breeze-block buildings with mortar and artillery fire. From nearby rooftops the shelling looked indiscriminate. Thick clouds of dust and smoke rose up from all quarters. Some shells missed the camp entirely, splashing into the Mediterranean beyond. Their electricity and water supply cut off, terrified camp residents had to dodge both the militants' sniper fire and the army's constant shelling. Some complained that the gunmen were holding the camp hostage, but when several hundred gathered to shout protests, militants scattered them with gunfire. Muezzins could be heard calling from minarets for a ceasefire to let in relief workers. One UN aid convoy crept into the camp, but was forced to retreat under heavy fire.

Seeking to score points from the drama in their own feuding, some Lebanese opposition parties have accused the government of turning a blind eye to the spread of radical Sunni groups, insinuating that they were meant as a foil against Shias. Others have hinted, implausibly, that Fatah al-Islam is a CIA-funded operation, aimed at prompting an army coup. Yet it appears that most Lebanese solidly back their army, and the government, bolstered by support from the Arab League as well as America, seems determined to wipe Fatah al-Islam out.

But as always in Lebanon, the balance is delicate. Should the army prevail with a minimum loss of life, the government in Beirut may feel boosted by the current wave of support from ordinary citizens. Worse bloodshed, however, could play into the hands of its enemies, showing the army to be feeble, stirring unrest among Palestinians, and favouring the opposition's drive to topple the government. Whatever the outcome, the fighting is also a reminder that Lebanon—and the rest of the world—should not let the country's wretched Palestinian camps continue to fester as ghettos of misery and extremism which stoke up anger across the region.