Opposition struggles for control of Tripoli


By Mahan Abedin
Asia Times
Jan 13, 2010


In recent months, the world of Lebanese politics has shown growing signs of stability. Following the elections of June 2009, won by the pro-Western March 14 coalition, the government led by Saad Hariri has shown noticeable (if not grudging) willingness to accommodate opposition demands and has been careful not to alienate the powerful Hezbollah movement, which commands an armed force that is markedly stronger than any the Lebanese state could muster.

But the politics of accommodation that seem to be holding sway in Beirut - at least for now - do not extend to Tripoli, Lebanon's second-biggest city and home to the country's Sunni Muslims, who comprise just under one-third of the country's total population. Here, the Future Movement led by Hariri is continuously taking steps to thwart the opposition and maintain its tenuous dominance of the city's factionalized politics.

As the biggest and most influential component of the so-called March 14 coalition, which sprang up in early 2005 in the wake of the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, the Future Movement has plenty of financial resources to buy influence in Tripoli. It can also rely on the sectarian loyalties of most of the city's inhabitants, especially during periods of internal conflict.

This article concentrates on the main Tripoli-based opposition coalition, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), and examines its prospects in the light of the demise of its founder and leader, Fathi Yakan, who died last June.

The IAF was formed in early August 2006, at the height of the Hezbollah-Israel war of that summer. It was ostensibly formed to provide a broader basis of support for Hezbollah's "resistance" and unite Lebanon's Sunni Muslims behind the predominantly Shi'ite Islamist movement. But following the war, the IAF developed into a fully fledged political coalition comprised of various Sunni Islamist groups.

It was based predominantly in Tripoli, but had branches all over the country. From the beginning in August 2006 to June 2009, the IAF was defined by the towering personality of Dr Fathi Yakan, a leading Islamist leader and ideologue, and the founder of the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yakan's death in June 2009 has raised serious questions about the long-term durability of the Islamic Action Front.

Tripoli: Bastion of Sunni Islamists
On the surface, the port city of Tripoli is a conservative place populated for the most part by devout Muslims. Probe a little deeper, and the contradictions of modern Lebanon are all too apparent. This is the kind of place where heavily bearded Salafis mingle comfortably with cosmopolitan and suave Lebanese businessmen who lead a jet-set lifestyle. It is also the place where the most meticulously hijabi women (cloaked all in black) walk shoulder-to-shoulder with stunningly beautiful young women wearing the tightest jeans imaginable and taking care to expose as much upper-body flesh as they can get away with.

The power and influence of the Islamists is strongest in the Abi Samra quarter, a large district situated on a hill to the east of the city. Here, a dizzying array of Islamist groups maintains offices and national headquarters. These groups range from the Jamaa al-Islamiyah (the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood) and its offshoots, the Pan-Islamic Hizbut Tahrir, to an assortment of Salafi-orientated groups and institutions.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon has sided with the March 14 coalition, a stance that has led to considerable internal debate and squabbles. The late Fathi Yakan, who left the Jamaa al-Islamiyah in 1992, led a dissident wing of the Muslim Brothers movement in Lebanon until his death in June 2009. Yakan, who founded the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1960s, openly sided with Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Islamist movement backed by Iran, especially after the July-August 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war.

The Salafis in Tripoli are a divided lot. Most Salafi groups in the city receive funding from three foreign sources - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait. Most of them have also received funding and other forms of support from the Future Movement at some point. There are widespread and credible accounts of the Future Movement funding the Salafis to undercut support for Hezbollah both locally and nationally.

The Salafis in Tripoli and the north of Lebanon, including leaders, activists and active supporters, are split into about half-a-dozen main groups and an assortment of smaller outfits. Most of these groups are involved in religio-social activism and tend to shun politics.

But arguably the biggest Islamist current in Tripoli is the Tawhid (Monotheism) movement led by Sheikh Bilal Shaaban and Sheikh Hashim Minqara. Understanding this complex movement is crucial to unraveling the labyrinthine oppositional politics in Tripoli.

Tawhid movement: An unfulfilled promise
The Tawhid movement can trace its ideological heritage to the 1970s, where it took inspiration from Islamist ideology, Arab nationalism and pride in the unique local Tripolitanian culture and identity.

Partly rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood movement, Tawhid became a force in its own right in the early 1980s, when it articulated all three components of its ideology to mobilize large sectors of Tripoli in the direction of Islamization and greater local autonomy. The founder-leader of the Tawhid movement was the late Sheikh Saeed Shaaban, one of the key founders and leaders of the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood when it was formed in 1962.

In the early and mid-1980s, as Lebanon sank deeper into civil war, the Tawhid movement took over the city and imposed a de-facto Islamic emirate. As its power and influence grew, the movement inevitably came into conflict with the Syrians, who were interfering more forcefully than ever in Lebanese politics.

The conflict climaxed in 1985-1986, when the Syrians launched an operation to oust Tawhid from power. At one point, even the then-Iranian president, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei (the current leader of the Islamic Revolution), intervened directly in the conflict, urging the Syrians to desist from destroying the movement.

The pro-Iranian orientation of the Tawhid movement is what elicited the intervention at the highest levels of the Iranian government. The late Sheikh Saeed Shaaban had been impressed by the Islamic revolution of 1979 in Iran and sent both of his sons - Bial and Moaz - to Iran to learn more about the embryonic Islamic Republic taking shape in that country.

Following its ouster by the Syrians in 1986, the Tawhid movement has struggled to make a comeback. Today, the movement is effectively split into two factions; one led by Bilal Shaaban (a son of the late Saeed Shaaban), who is based in Abi Samra, and the other by Hashim Minqara, who is based in the Western Mina district.

I met Hashim Minqara at the Issa Bin Maryam mosque in the Mina district, which serves as his headquarters. Dressed in clerical attire, with a white beard and a swollen form, Minqara, now in his late 40s, does not immediately come across as a military man. But that is precisely how he made his mark in the Tawhid movement, by leading its armed wing initially against the communists and other local foes and then against the Syrians. Local legend has it that prior to his arrest, Syrian soldiers pumped 72 bullets into his body but somehow he miraculously survived.

Speaking in a painfully soft voice, Minqara takes care to review the ideological and military battles of yesteryear. Watching Minqara speak, there is no indication that he spent 14 years in Syrian prisons, before he was released in 2000. He spent three-and-a-half of those years in solitary confinement. There is a total disconnect between this man's legendary reputation and the mild and scholarly persona that he projects in interviews.

Minqara denies any rivalry with Bilal Shaaban and maintains that the two wings of this once formidable political-military organization work together to advance Tawhid's objectives, a kind of division of labor. While Minqara concentrates mostly on local issues and is dedicated to strengthening the Islamic movement in Tripoli, Bilal Shaaban is mostly focused on advancing the group at a national level. On core strategic and ideological issues, there doesn't seem to be any difference between these men. Minqara affirms support for Hezbollah and claims that the Future Movement cannot maintain its dominance in Tripoli in the long-term since it lacks a "program" and an "ideology". In the near future, the "Future" movement will become the "Past" movement in Tripoli, Minqara confidently claims.

Bilal Shaaban is urbane, sophisticated and strikingly handsome. In his mid-40s and based in the heart of Abi Samra, he directs and represents the Tawhid movement at national and international levels. Under his leadership, Tawhid moved firmly into Hezbollah's orbit, a bold move in a city where sectarian loyalty often supersedes other political considerations.

Even more interestingly, it was under Shaaban's leadership that Tawhid finally made peace with the Syrians, who had inflicted so much damage on the movement in the mid-1980s. Shaaban is at pains to refute the notion that the Future Movement "dominates" Tripoli. Instead, he constructs a narrative wherein a wide array of forces is constantly vying for control of this strategic place.

One dimension of Bilal Shaaban is his pan-Islamic rhetoric, especially interesting in a politically fragmented city where according to a local joke every political party owns a few apartment complexes. While Shaaban projects himself as the overall leader of the Tawhid movement, he readily accepts the division into two factions, and expresses nothing but admiration for Hashim Minqara.

Indeed, despite the division, the two men have worked closely to keep Tawhid relevant at both local and national levels. The two worked hand in hand to cultivate a close relationship with the late Fathi Yakan and immediately joined Yakan's Islamic Action Front when it was formed in August 2006, at the height of the Hezbollah-Israel war.

Generally speaking, Tripoli-based Salafis shunned the Islamic Action Front. The only major exception was Dr Hassan Saeed al-Shahal, who heads a Salafi organization called "Propagation of Faith, Justice and Welfare". Shahal is also the general supervisor of the "Daawah and Irshad" college, a social and educational institute. Both organizations are entirely funded by Saudi Arabia. Shahal was a key signatory to a memorandum of understanding between Hezbollah and the Tripoli-based Salafis in August 2008, but he has since distanced himself from the initiative, primarily because of pressure from the local allies of the Future Movement.

I meet Hassan Shahal at his residence in the outer fringes of Abi Samra and interviewed him for well over two hours. He is at pains to refute the al-Qaeda ideology and describes the September 11, 2001, attacks as a "tragedy". He is less keen to talk about local politics. In his late 50s, with immaculately groomed grey hair and a strong masculine face, Shahal struggles to stake out an intellectual position on the leading topics of the day. He boasts of his links to Michel Aoun, the veteran Maronite military commander and politician and leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, a key ally of Hezbollah. Shahal admits to Future Movement funding of Salafis in the past and moreover complains that the government "uses" Islamists and subsequently "discards" them.

In the shadow of Fathi Yakan
I visited the Jinan University at the very edge of Abi Samra to interview the late Fathi Yakan's widow and son. Yakan established Jinan University and managed it with the help of his wife, Dr Mona Yakan. Elegant, dressed all in black with a matching headscarf, Mona Yakan comes across as the quintessential academic.

Still mourning the loss of her husband, she vigorously defends his ideas and legacy and yet manages to stay clear of politics at the same time. She describes her late husband as the "father" of the Islamic movement in Lebanon, but in the same breath claims that his impact on Lebanon was small compared to the mark he left internationally.

Mona Yakan sees her own role as president of Jinan University as purely educational. Yet it is clear that this remarkable woman in her late 60s is determined to drive the Islamic ideology championed by her late husband, into the deepest fabrics of society. She claims that Jinan University will soon be offering "degrees" on the "Islamic ideology" of Fathi Yakan.

Salem Yakan is 32, has studied business management, and so far he hasn't shown any desire or ability to follow in his late father's footsteps. He is the principal of the Jinan High School, a sister institution of Jinan University. Chubby, clean-shaven and European-looking, Salem Yakan denies any organizational role in the Islamic Action Front, but doesn't rule out the prospect in the future. When I ask who would succeed his late father, Mona Yakan abruptly intervenes and says succession is not possible since the "gap" between the late Yakan and the others is "huge". She says that people feel "orphaned" by Yakan's demise.

Despite the lack of a successor to Yakan, the future is not necessarily bleak for the Islamic Action Front. At a local level, while the Future Movement can keep on buying loyalty more or less indefinitely, its lack of vision and direction is bound to undercut its position at some point. There is plenty of scope for the IAF to mobilize Islamist dissent against Future and the wider March 14 coalition.

It is at the national level that the IAF can play a potentially strategic role, as the Sunni Islamist partner of Hezbollah. Success at this level will depend on wider strategic dynamics, particularly the likelihood of another Hezbollah-Israel war, and whether the IAF can mobilize significant Sunni support for Hezbollah. But more importantly, it will depend on the extent to which the IAF can displace the Jamaa al-Islamiyah as the most influential Sunni Islamist voice in Lebanon.

Mahan Abedin is a senior researcher in terrorism studies and a consultant to independent media in Iran. He is currently based in northern Iraq, where he is helping to develop local media capacity.

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