It is a little over three hours since I posted about the official entry of Hezbollah into the Syrian civil war and the inevitable Sunni/Shia fighting which will follow. Now comes the first word of an attack on a Shiite neighborhood of Beirut. Two rockets hit the area causing damage but no fatalities.
The leadership of the Syrian rebels (to the extent there is any leadership) says that they took no part in the attack and they called for the rebels to keep all attacks within Syria. That is about as convincing as the previous statements by Hezbollah that it had no fighters in Syria. I am surprised that the al Qaeda forces did not blame the attack on a you tube video, since that ploy worked so well for them in the past.
This attack may be nothing more than a warning to Hezbollah that it had better not leave its Lebanese redoubts lightly guarded. In that sense, the attack will work to tie down Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon thereby keeping them out of Syria. On the other hand, the attack may just be the first in a new wave of sectarian violence that will sweep the Middle East. We will have to wait and see.
The leadership of the Syrian rebels (to the extent there is any leadership) says that they took no part in the attack and they called for the rebels to keep all attacks within Syria. That is about as convincing as the previous statements by Hezbollah that it had no fighters in Syria. I am surprised that the al Qaeda forces did not blame the attack on a you tube video, since that ploy worked so well for them in the past.
This attack may be nothing more than a warning to Hezbollah that it had better not leave its Lebanese redoubts lightly guarded. In that sense, the attack will work to tie down Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon thereby keeping them out of Syria. On the other hand, the attack may just be the first in a new wave of sectarian violence that will sweep the Middle East. We will have to wait and see.
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