BEIRUT - People in the Lebanese capital Beirut are watching anxiously as the increasingly bloody conflict in neighbouring Syria unfolds, fearing it could spill over the border and bring a return of the violence that tore their own country apart for so long. Beirut has undergone a renaissance since the days when Muslim and Christian factions, as well as Palestinian guerrillas, clashed over a Green Line and foreign interlopers imposed their will with troops, tanks and warplanes. The bars and restaurants of Hamra and Gemmayzeh are buzzing every night with crowds of young professionals and students. But memories of the car bombs, massacres and kidnappings are still fresh and opinions on Syria vary across Beirut's patchwork of religious communities and alliances, all coloured by people's own loyalties and experience of war. In the poor St Michel district, home to Muslim refugees from the 1975-90 civil war, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is a hero. “He is at war with the United States and Israel. They support the opposition,” said Ramha al-Hassan, a Sunni Muslim woman stopping to buy bread at a shop in a scruffy street of crumbling houses and overhanging electrical wires. She said her brother and three of his children were killed in 1983 when the US battleship New Jersey, anchored off Beirut, shelled their home in the mountains. Her mother was killed by Israeli bombs. Assad wins the approval of some for his support for the anti-Israeli Hezbollah movement, an important political, military and social player in Lebanon though deemed a terrorist organisation by the United States and Europe. “Sure Assad is good,” said Shi'ite shopkeeper Belal Assayed, 39. “The main reason for the problem is that Bashar is a supporter of Hezbollah. If he stops support for the resistance, the Americans and the Saudis will leave him alone.” Two of his nephews were killed by Israeli warplanes in the 2006 war in south Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel, he said. Assayed feared a spillover as the situation gets worse. “People are divided, who is for, who is against. Nobody here likes war. Lebanon was destroyed by war.” Hussein Jaber, a 46-year-old Shi'ite labourer, held a similar view. Speaking in his house in St. Michel while his mother served Turkish coffee and pineapple juice, he said: “The war will reflect on Lebanon. A war of religion, Shi'ite against Sunni. I'm definitely afraid for our country.” His friend Ali Rajeb, a 60-year-old cobbler, shared his admiration for Assad. Asked about the killing of hundreds Syrian civilians by his security forces, he said: “They are killing terrorists. If a foreigner comes to your home to kill you, what would you do? Israel bombed Lebanon and nobody asked why.” The two men said they got their information from Hezbollah TV. They also watched the Gulf-based al Jazeera, whose coverage is not favourable to Assad, but said it was “full of lies”. Such views counter the Western picture of the Syria conflict. Assad has drawn international condemnation, including a United Nations resolution, for the ferocity of his crackdown on the near year-long uprising against his rule. Several thousand people have been killed and the world has watched in horror as his forces bombard neighbourhoods of Homs to crush the opposition or fire on unarmed demonstrators.
