Fighting in Lebanon?

Who is fighting whom here. The Lebaneze army is battling Al-Qaeda militants?

I was under the impression that nothing happens in Lebanon without Syrian and by extension Iranian approval. Unless of course its Sunni vs Shia?

[kurtz]

As far as I can divine the goverment is largely christian and anti syrian but struggling against syrian interference with very little help from ouside. However help from the west or israel would further alienate the population from the government.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Unless of course its Sunni vs Shia?

That's certainly a major part of it.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by kurtz

As far as I can divine the goverment is largely christian and anti syrian but struggling against syrian interference with very little help from ouside. However help from the west or israel would further alienate the population from the government.

Thats whats going on, the group they are fighting came from Syria.

[Heibges]

And sadly, they used to call Beruit the Jewel of the Middle East.

This has really been going on for almost 30 years now.

[kurtz]

I thought Sunni and Shia were a sixties singing duo until I started on Subsim general

I actually spent a bit of time in Beirut with my job, and found the Lebanese to be, on the whole very pleasant easygoing people. In fact I would compare Beirut to Blackpool except for the endemic violence (in Blackpool!).

Had some great times there and I find it sad that the Lebanese are copping it it for Syria who are using them to fight a proxy war.

Mike.

[AntEater]

AFAIK the christian and druse (religious sect with a mix of Islam, Bhuddism and Christianity living in all countries in the area. The druse men mostly are professional soldiers in the Lebanese, Israeli and Syrian armies) dominated, israeli and french trained lebanese army fights a sunni fundamentalist group in one or serveral "refugee camps"; actually now small cities of palestinians in Lebanon, as these camps are there since 1949.
These militant groups are NOT Hezbollah, as they are sunni/palestinian and not lebanese shiite. They may share the common goal of destroying Israel, but as always with Arabs, slaughtering each other comes before slaughtering your real enemy
Apparently the lebanese have to do the dirty work for the IDF now.

[Chock]

I thought Sunni and Shia were a sixties singing duo

LMAO :rotfl:

You're right about Blackpool too, I was training some people from Blackpool yesterday on Photoshop, and they basically held the same opinion of it. Probably going to be worse this week by all acounts, as it'll be full of Russians over for some dance competition they're having next week, so I was told.

Back on the real topic, as Winston Churchill once said about the Soviet Union, 'a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma' could well be applied to the struggles in the Middle East. There are so many agendas and proxy wars going on there, that I doubt anyone could possibly know all about everything that is behind the fighting. After all, it's only the 'Middle East' to us viewing it from a distance, to the people who are actually there, it's the place where they are, and a fact of daily life. And since there are such a diverse group of people, ideas and theologies behind all the events, it's an enigma that is likely to remain undeciphered. I've been hearing about trouble in the region everyday on the news ever since I was a child, and that's a long time.

Chock

[Jimbuna]

I thought Sunni and Shia were a sixties singing duo until I started on Subsim general

:rotfl: :rotfl:

[tycho102]

Originally Posted by kurtz

As far as I can divine the goverment is largely christian and anti syrian but struggling against syrian interference with very little help from ouside. However help from the west or israel would further alienate the population from the government.

It's way more complex than that, but the aid issue is accurate enough. Pakistan and Lebanon have a lot of political similarities -- both are an absolutely nightmarish mix of loyalities and ideologies.

Probably the easiest issue to understand is that it's Shi'a killing Sunni. It's more complex, but like an indexed topic, that would be the top branch.

[Frau_Phillips]

Thank God, some war that has nothing to do with the US XP

[AntEater]

Actually Seymour Hersh disagrees with that.
Apparently the US has tried to sponsor sunni militant groups in Lebanon as a counterforce to Iran's influence on the Hezbollah. These are the very same groups the lebanese Army is currently cracking down on.