gunmen braced for a possible battle with the Lebanese army, the city held its breath, fearing a renewal of the sectarian fighting that pitted two Alawite and Sunni neighbourhoods in the city, Jabal Mohsen and Bab Al-Tabbanah, against one another. But the worse was avoided thanks to city dignitaries whose timely intervention brought uneasy calm back to Lebanon's second largest city. By the time calm was restored, one army soldier had been killed, and several injured. The crisis reached a turning point when Salafi Sheikh Dayi Al-Islam Al-Shahhal called for a sit-in Friday to protest against recent actions of the Lebanese army, which has been trying to bring an end to the fighting in Jabal Mohsen and Bab Al-Tabbanah. Several Salafi leaders, such as Al-Shahhal, played a part in escalating the situation. But saner voices within the Salafist movements, including that of Sheikh Salem Al-Rafie, chairman of the Muslim Ulema in Lebanon, spoke for peace. Al-Rafie held a meeting in his office with Tripoli clerics and dignitaries. Following the meeting, he issued a statement saying that the attacks on the army in Bab Al-Tabbana, a Sunni neighbourhood, were unacceptable. Brigadier General Ashraf Rifi, chief of internal security forces in Lebanon and a major Sunni figure in Tripoli, was in constant touch with various groups to find a peaceful ending to the crisis. The mufti of Tripoli and North Lebanon, Malek Al-Shaar, called for a ceasefire and pressed Al-Shahhal to tone down his rhetoric. In Beirut, activists held a sit-in at Riyad Al-Solh Square to denounce the fighting in Tripoli. Not all politicians spoke for the cause of peace. Khaled Al-Dahhar, a member of the Future Movement current in parliament, called on 14 March forces to arm themselves, saying that they must “use the same means that Hizbullah is using”. The success of Tripoli inhabitants in containing the crisis shows how determined the Sunni community is to stop the fighting between Jabal Mohsen and Bab Al-Tabbanah, the two impoverished neighbourhoods that became a byword for sectarian strife. The confrontation with the army is symptomatic of the turbulence in which the Sunni community found itself since the assassination of prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri. The Sunni community is known for its conservative politics. The Sunnis, almost one third of all the Lebanese, have traditionally stood by law and order and — unlike the Shias, the Druze, and the Christians — largely refrained from forming their own militias. On the whole, the Sunnis remained unarmed during Lebanon's 15-year civil war. The only militia to come from their ranks was the Independent Nasserist Movement, aka Al-Murabitun. And even then, almost one-half of Al-Murabitun fighters were Shias. The Sunnis are the centrists of Lebanon, averse to war, committed to law and order, and generally Westernised. Whenever they could, they were the mediators who tried to calm down other rival groups. In comparison, the Druze, a much smaller sect, was highly active during the civil war. In the end, it was the Sunnis, led by Rafik Al-Hariri, who brokered the Taif Accords that brought an end to the civil war. After becoming prime minister, Al-Hariri led the country into a surge of reconstruction and development. The Sunni prime minister brought much assistance and prestige to the war-torn country through his regional and international connections. When he was assassinated in 2005, the Sunnis found themselves dragged into a confrontation that wasn't of their making. Al-Hariri's killing incensed all Lebanese, but more so his own Sunni community, some strands of which slipped and became more militant. In the charged aftermath of the assassination, the Syrian army had to pull out of Lebanon. But the vacuum left behind by Al-Hariri led to increasing militancy in some Sunni areas of the country, and led to intermittent confrontations with the Lebanese army. Last summer, Sunni militants led by Salafi Sheikh Ahmed Al-Assir gave battle to the army in Sidon. Although some Sunni politicians tried to use these confrontations for political gain, the general reaction of the Sunni community to the rise of militancy in their ranks was one of shock and confusion. When Hizbullah and Alawite groups based respectively in Jabal Mohsen and Bab Al-Tabbanah began to exchange gunfire, the bulk of the Sunni community stood back, watching the bloody events unfold with a mix of horror and disbelief. The Sunnis are at best ambiguous about the army's stand. Although on the whole, the community supports the power of the state, it cannot see why the army is so tolerant of Hizbullah's weapons, despite its assertion that regular citizens cannot bear arms. So when the army moves against fledgling Sunni militia, the Sunnis are in two minds. On one hand, they want the army to impose its authority. On the other, they want the same authority exercised in the case of Hizbullah's militants. The army, Sunni politicians often note, is not doing anything to restrain Hizbullah for involvement in the Syrian war. The Sunnis remember with bitterness the army's refusal to act during the 7 May 2008 events, in which Hizbullah and Amal gunmen took control of Beirut in a scene that challenged the authority of the state. The army, it has to be admitted, had its own reasons to play it safe. With most of its soldiers either Shias or Sunni, a head-on collision with the powerful militia of Hizbullah could split the army in half. For this and other reasons, the relation between the Sunnis and the Lebanese army has been fraught with complications. Some Sunnis feel that the army is too close to Hizbullah to do what is best for the country. Meanwhile, the Lebanese army has to balance its duty of neutrality with the realpolitik of Lebanon's intricate power structure. The army is the least sectarian institution in Lebanon, and yet its desire to be even-handed towards all sects has been skewed by Hizbullah's power and foreign connections. The recent crisis in Tripoli may have been defused without any major conflagration, but the connotations are not to be ignored. Lebanon is slipping once again into potential confrontation. With the Sunnis constituting the majority in the north and the Shias in the south, it will take a lot of sagacity to keep the spectre of confrontation away. Just as there is a minority of Shias living in Tripoli, there is a minority of Sunnis living in Shia areas in Beirut and Sidon. A spark of sectarianism, fuelled by a militant sheikh or a hot-headed militiaman, can have grave consequences for entire neighbourhoods and beyond.
