As Syria hots up, Lebanon begins to feel the heat too, says Lucy Fielder in Beirut A failed rocket launch and an attack on UNIFIL peace keepers shook the south this week, prompting fears among some Lebanese that the dreaded "spillover" from the crisis in neighbouring Syria had arrived. Five French peace keepers were injured when a roadside bomb went off as their jeep passed, none life-threateningly. One bystander is in critical condition. Unlike the two other attacks this year on the force, the latest occurred in the far south near Tyre, rather than before Sidon, which is closer to the capital. Accusations flew within hours, with opposition hawk Marwan Hamade immediately pointing the finger at Syria for sending a message to France, with Shia armed group Hizbullah as its "postman". But no group claimed responsibility and UNIFIL stressed that an investigation had only just begun. Analysts, diplomats and politicians have been warning for months that a Syrian slide into chaos could tip Lebanon's precarious stability, given the similar complex sectarian mix and the possibility that the Syrian regime could stir violence to send a message to foreign powers to stop them meddling. Hamade's swift finger-pointing was predictable given his staunch anti-Syrian regime stance and political opposition to Hizbullah, whose alliance currently dominates the government. Former prime minister Saad Al-Hariri, absent from Lebanon since April but a constant presence on Twitter of late, tweeted that the bombing was "another message from Syria". More surprisingly, for many analysts, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe echoed the claims on Sunday, both against Syria and Hizbullah, while conceding that he had no proof. Syria's Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi said Juppe was resorting to "conspiracy theories". Hizbullah condemned both the attack and France's accusation in strong terms. A number of analysts pointed to the fact that both this attack and the last one in July targeted the French, who have spearheaded the Western diplomatic campaign against President Bashar Al-Assad's regime over its crackdown on the uprising. Juppe himself was the first Western leader to publicly raise the prospect of international intervention by speaking of "secured zones" for civilians inside Syria. Five soldiers were also wounded in the July explosion, which followed one in May that injured Italian peace keepers. Prior to that, the last attack was in 2008. Hilal Khashan, political science professor at the American University of Beirut, saw a rise in security incidents and the latest events in the south as a sign "spill-over" had arrived. "Somebody is trying to sow the seeds of dissension in Lebanon, and Syria has a lot of cards to play, including the Lebanese security card," he said. He pointed out that Assad had warned in a July speech that "any problem in Syria will burn the whole region". Khashan also said Hizbullah, given its effectiveness against Israeli spy networks, would likely know, at least, of any attack from its area of operations in south Lebanon. But Timur Goksel, strategic analyst at the American University of Beirut and a former UNIFIL spokesman, pointed out that there were a multitude of small Islamist and Palestinian groups operating in the Palestinian refugee camps, which are off-limits to the army. "These roadside bombs are quite primitive, it's relatively easy for one of these groups to leave one and simply melt away," he said. Goksel dismissed Hizbullah involvement. "If Hizbullah decided to start targeting western forces, they could do it much more effectively than this." Syria, meanwhile, had little to gain from sending an anti-French message, just days after French Ambassador Eric Chevalier returned to Damascus. "I suspect it's a small Islamic group with an anti-Western agenda," Goksel said. UNIFIL has monitored the area bordering Israel since 1978, but it was beefed up following the 2006 war with Israel and high-profile European contingents were brought in. It currently comprises 12,000 personnel from 36 countries. Some at the time criticised the fact that the force would be stationed on the Lebanese side only, despite its avowed neutrality. But because it coordinates with the Lebanese army, which has good relations with Hizbullah, there have been few tensions between the armed group and the UN force. Some suggest that given that Hizbullah is not currently viewed as seeking round II of the 2006 war, since it is generally assumed that any such war will be even more destructive, it in fact benefits from UNIFIL's presence. Following UNIFIL's bolstering, Ayman El-Zawahri, then the Al-Qaeda number two, urged attacks on the force several times. The first and bloodiest attack was in June 2007, when six Spanish peace keepers were killed. Lebanese officials, fighting the Islamist group Fatah Al-Islam at the time in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, blamed the Islamist group. But each side in Lebanon blamed the other for backing the group. Small Islamist groups have also claimed responsibility for rocket attacks across the border, like the one last weekend that misfired and landed in a village on the Lebanese side, injuring a woman.
