• published: 26 May 2013
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Two rockets crashed into southern Beirut suburbs controlled by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah on Sunday, wounding four people in what appeared to be the first attack on the group's Beirut stronghold in more than two years of sectarian tensions here over the civil war next door in Syria. It was unclear who fired the rockets, which Lebanese authorities said came from the hills southeast of the city. Syrian rebel leaders denied involvement. But some rebel commanders threatened last week to hit the area in retaliation for Hezbollah's growing role in the fierce battle for the strategic Syrian town of Qusayr. Just a day before the rocket attacks, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, declared that his forces would fight to the end to support their allies in the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. The attack raised fears of increased spillover violence in Lebanon, where many Sunni Muslims support the mainly Sunni Syrian rebels and sectarian clashes have worsened in the northern city of Tripoli. It made plain that not everyone had heeded Mr. Nasrallah's call on Saturday for supporters and opponents of the Syrian government to spare Lebanon by taking their fight to Syria. Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful political party and militia, and its main political rivals all say they have a stake in easing the violence in Lebanon, which bears the scars of its own 15-year sectarian civil war. The prospect of all-out conflict here still seems remote to most. But after the rocket strikes on Sunday, anxieties seemed to run higher than at any point over the past few years, and a parade of Lebanese officials called for calm. Reflecting Lebanon's deep divide over Syria, some mainly condemned Sunday's attack, while others blamed Hezbollah's plunge deeper into Syria. "Lebanese citizens and leaders should be awakened by this warning before Lebanon explodes," the country's mufti, Sheik Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, a Sunni, told Lebanon's LBC television. Near the impact site in the Chiah District of Beirut's southern suburbs — the Hezbollah power center known simply simply as the Dahiya, the Arabic word for suburb — residents on Sunday said the attacks would not deter the group's followers. The rockets appeared to have caused minor damage to a car dealership, injuring four people, including two Syrian citizens, and to have hit the living room of an apartment where no one was home. "Some factions are trying to spread chaos in this part of the country," said Samir, a young man who was inspecting the damage Chiah, but he added, quoting Mr. Nasrallah, "they are weaker than a spider's web." Ibrahim Hamedeh, a Shiite from the Bekaa Valley town of Hermel, said the attack seemed aimed to make people, including those from other sects, fear association with Hezbollah. Though it was unclear how precisely the rockets had been aimed, residents noted that the dealership was owned by a Sunni, that two of the injured were Syrian employees, and that the rockets fell near a church where Hezbollah signed an accord with one of its main political allies, a Christian party, in 2006. In both Syria and Lebanon, each side blames the other for injecting a sectarian tone into the conflict. Mr. Nasrallah said on Saturday that Hezbollah was intervening in Syria to protect Lebanon and the region from religious extremists among the rebels who consider Shiites infidels; some rebels have kidnapped Shiites and destroyed their shrines. The growing role of Islamist extremists in the opposition movement has alarmed Western leaders as well. At the same time, many Sunnis argue that Hezbollah has proved itself sectarian by siding, at the behest of the group's patron, the Shiite theocracy in Iran, with Mr. Assad's violent crackdown on a mainly Sunni rebellion demanding political rights. Hezbollah's main political rival in Lebanon, the March 14 coalition, insists that it is not pushing sectarian or military conflict in Lebanon. But the Syrian government's supporters have long accused the coalition's main party, the largely Sunni Future Movement, of providing weapons to rebels. And Lebanese Sunnis were among the first to cross the border to fight with rebels. In past conflicts, Lebanon's Sunnis have lacked organized militia muscle to counter Hezbollah. They folded to Hezbollah's will in 2008 when it occupied downtown Beirut to demand veto power in the Lebanese government. But Syria may have changed the calculus. Now that an unknown number of Lebanese Sunnis have fought in Syria, they may pose a new threat. Rebels have infiltrated parts of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, and fears have grown that there are militants among Syrian refugees flooding the country. And as the Sunni Future Movement's leader, Saad Hariri, remains outside the country because of security fears, more-provocative leaders in Tripoli and Sidon have stepped into the leadership vacuum to tap into Sunni anger -- often using sharp anti-Shiite language.