The city of Tripoli in Lebanon is home to a little more than half a million people. Almost all of these folks are Sunni Moslems. There are maybe 25,000 Alawaites (who are Shiites) and about the same number of Maronite Christians. That makes the city about 90% Sunni. It seems a strange place for the first big battle outside Syria in the Syrian civil war, but today, that is what happened. Somewhere between 15 and 20 people were killed as mortar and rifle fire was exchanged between supporters and opponents of president Assad of Syria.
It is important to note that Tripoli is not on the border with Syria. There are not large numbers of Syrian refugees in the city. Those who were fighting were Lebanese, not Syrian.
There is speculation that the attacks were undertaken in an attempt to stop the population of the city from supporting the rebels fighting Assad. If that is the intent, it seems a rather idiotic move by the Assad/Iranian forces. There is no way that the pro-Assad forces are going to take the city absent a full scale invasion of Lebanon by the Assad army, and that would leave Assad stretched way too thin in Syria. Do the Assad/Iranian forces actually think that attacking the people of Tripoli is going to make them less antagonistic to Assad? The idea is laughable.
One last note: it goes without saying that the American government will do nothing and say nothing meaningful about the spread of fighting from Syria into Lebanon. After all, we learned from president Obama today that the need for drone strikes has decreased and our forces can basically stand down on most days. More people die, the Syrian war spreads, the ground becomes more fertile for terror groups to take over, but Obama proclaims peace and ignores what is happening.
I am sure that when we reach 100,000 dead in the Syrian war in the next month or so, Obama will hold a press conference to announce that he knows nothing at all about the situation. His staff decided not to tell him what was happening in order to let Obama have deniability.
It is important to note that Tripoli is not on the border with Syria. There are not large numbers of Syrian refugees in the city. Those who were fighting were Lebanese, not Syrian.
There is speculation that the attacks were undertaken in an attempt to stop the population of the city from supporting the rebels fighting Assad. If that is the intent, it seems a rather idiotic move by the Assad/Iranian forces. There is no way that the pro-Assad forces are going to take the city absent a full scale invasion of Lebanon by the Assad army, and that would leave Assad stretched way too thin in Syria. Do the Assad/Iranian forces actually think that attacking the people of Tripoli is going to make them less antagonistic to Assad? The idea is laughable.
One last note: it goes without saying that the American government will do nothing and say nothing meaningful about the spread of fighting from Syria into Lebanon. After all, we learned from president Obama today that the need for drone strikes has decreased and our forces can basically stand down on most days. More people die, the Syrian war spreads, the ground becomes more fertile for terror groups to take over, but Obama proclaims peace and ignores what is happening.
I am sure that when we reach 100,000 dead in the Syrian war in the next month or so, Obama will hold a press conference to announce that he knows nothing at all about the situation. His staff decided not to tell him what was happening in order to let Obama have deniability.
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