ISIL finance official held in Tripoli as Michel Aoun makes visit to Baghdad
Lebanese security forces yesterday arrested a man suspected of being a financial official for ISIL in Syria, as President Michel Aoun called for Arab unity in the fight against the terrorist group.
Mr Aoun, who was in Iraq for the first visit by a Lebanese head of state, met President Fuad Masum, and Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi, to discuss ways to combat terrorism.
“Arab states and the international community must build joint efforts to fight against terrorism in an efficient and radical way, to eliminate them and end the factors that favour terrorist ideology,” Mr Aoun said.
Baghdad in December declared victory against ISIL, which at one point had seized control of almost one third of the country.
Although the military campaign against ISIL has officially ended in Iraq, the extremists continue to pose a threat to the country by carrying out suicide and bomb attacks in various cities.
Lebanon too has suffered at the hands of the insurgents but “succeeded in pushing them back from a border region with Syria”, Mr Aoun said.
The Syrian man arrested yesterday in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli was believed to be responsible for collecting money for ISIL in Albu Kamal, a city in eastern Syria, said Lebanon’s General Security in a statement carried by the National News Agency.
In November, the Syrian army and its allies recaptured Albu Kamal, ISIL’s last significant stronghold in Syria. Most ISIL members withdrew from the town during the battle.
The arrested man, identified only as Saud, entered Lebanon through a legal border crossing using his brother’s identity.
Lebanese authorities say they have disrupted several ISIL plots in recent months.
In Baghdad, Mr Aoun said that Beirut supports a strong and united Iraq as the two countries are bound together by the respect for diversity and coexistence. He said both countries aim to develop plans of co-operation and agreements that serves their interests.
“We had constructive talks that reflect the historical and brotherly ties that link our two countries and our people,” he said.
Baghdad’s central government is looking to raise tens of billions of dollars to help reconstruct the country after the fight against ISIL and decades of conflict. Mr Aoun announced that Lebanese companies, “with their extensive expertise”, and investors were ready to get involved.
For Mr Al Abadi, the talks had focused on “strengthening bilateral relations in the areas of economy, trade and reconstruction”.
The Iraqi president reportedly surprised his Lebanese counterpart with a birthday cake decorated with the Lebanese and Iraqi flags.
Mr Aoun, a former general and army chief, turned 83 earlier this week.
As tensions rise in Syria between Israel and Iran, it is taken for granted that if fighting breaks out there between the two sides, it will spread to neighbouring Lebanon. The argument is that Tehran will mobilise its Shia proxies, above all Hezbollah, which would then begin bombarding Israel on a front stretching from the Golan Heights to southern Lebanon.
That may indeed be true. The idea that Hezbollah has a margin of manoeuvre to take decisions that challenge Iranian priorities often seems unreasonable. However, as both Iran and Hezbollah think about a confrontation in Lebanon, they need to consider an important reality: the domestic Lebanese scene is different to how it was in 2006, when Israel and Hezbollah fought their last war against each other and the situation today is not in Hezbollah’s favour.
In 2006, in the months preceding the war, Hezbollah had concluded an alliance with the main Maronite Christian political party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of Michel Aoun. That is why, when the war began, the party still had a significant share of a major Lebanese religious community on its side, so that it did not find itself isolated domestically once the conflict ended.
Indeed, Hezbollah’s relationship with the Maronites followed on from the Syrian withdrawal in 2005. Having lost its Syrian ally, the party was worried that pressure would build up inside Lebanon for it to disarm. That’s why Hezbollah sought to ensure that two of Lebanon’s major communities, the Maronites and Sunnis, and their representatives, would remain divided politically, so as not to challenge the Shia Hezbollah’s independent military status in the state.
That approach worked for more than a decade, even leading to the election of Mr Aoun as president in October 2016, with Hezbollah support. Yet the alliance with Hezbollah was primarily driven by Mr Aoun’s calculation that it would facilitate his being elected. However, his victory was also a result of Saad Hariri’s decision to back Mr Aoun, and since that time the ties between Mr Hariri’s Future Movement and Mr Aoun’s FPM have greatly improved.
As elections approach in May, Mr Aoun is in a very different position than he was more than a decade ago. His candidates are expected to form joint lists with Mr Hariri’s candidates in several constituencies. As president, Mr Aoun has achieved the ambition he was pursuing so relentlessly in 2006 and that mandated he remain on good terms with Hezbollah, whatever the cost. At the same time, he is now responsible for the state and its wellbeing and he shares the same concerns as Mr Hariri, who is prime minister.
This cannot please Hezbollah because the next war with Israel will be much more devastating than that of 2006. Lebanon’s infrastructure would be destroyed and the cost of reconstruction immense, at a time when neither the international community nor Arab states have any money to spare for Lebanon. Worse, the Lebanese economy is in a precarious state and war would undoubtedly push it over the edge, creating a perfect storm of widespread destruction and national bankruptcy.
In such a climate, the popular backlash against Hezbollah would probably be very strong, even among Lebanon’s Shia, who would bear the brunt of Israeli bombings. Hezbollah would still have its guns but its ability to engage in any new war with Israel would be severely, perhaps permanently, impaired afterwards.
That’s especially true because much would change on the communal level. Mr Aoun and Mr Hariri, both opposed to Hezbollah’s embarking on a suicidal war against Israel on Iran’s behalf, could potentially join forces to put Hezbollah on the defensive. The party’s unpopular intervention in Syria has already painted it as a profoundly sectarian force, not an organisation fighting for Arab rights against Israel. Consequently, Hezbollah could find itself cornered inside Lebanon, something the party has tried strenuously to avoid since 2005.
It’s easy to say that Hezbollah would not care. The party has used force in the past to impose its will and may do so again. Perhaps, but Hezbollah is always careful not to take Lebanon’s sectarianism for granted. The idea that it could intimidate Maronites and Sunnis if they were united is laughable. Hezbollah looks at the balance of forces, and the last thing it wants is to be dragged into a sectarian confrontation in Lebanon that would find the Shia arrayed against all the rest.
This hardly means that Lebanon is safe. Hezbollah may yet go to war if Iran demands it, just as Israel may strike Lebanon, seeing an opportunity to neutralise the party. Yet this complex reality stands against a crude reading of Lebanon as a country controlled by Hezbollah. In fact, a majority of Lebanese oppose a war with Israel today, realising what ruin it would bring. Hezbollah cannot ignore this, knowing that Lebanon’s sectarian politics have undone stronger parties than it.
The domestic scene in Lebanon is different today to 2006 when Israel and Hezbollah fought their last war