Lebanon: The Battle of Abra

We investigate an incident highlighting tensions in Lebanese politics, the role of Hezbollah and the sectarian divide.

Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Tamer Almisshal investigates a confrontation in 2013 that highlights the serious tensions in Lebanese politics, the rise and role of Hezbollah, the emergence of Salafi-inspired groups and the depth of the country's continuing sectarian divide. 

What became known as the Battle of Abra is supposed to have begun with the killing of three soldiers in an attack by armed supporters of the conservative Sunni cleric Ahmed al-Assir. They're alleged to have attacked an army checkpoint in Sidon's Abra neighbourhood on June 23, 2013. Two days of intense fighting followed, resulting in the deaths of at least 17 Lebanese soldiers, more than an estimated 30 of Al-Assir's supporters, two civilians and (according to some accounts) two men associated with Hezbollah.

Who's to blame for Iraq crisis

Why don't you ask Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a shite who's governd Iraq like a dictator since his installation in said office with the backing of the Bush administration.  al-Maliki has created the current crisis in Iraq through his lust for power and his willingness to marginilize Iraq's Sunni minority who could have helped him maintain control over the whole of Iraq instead he chose to create an enemy where none need exist.

The politicization of the Iraqi military

For more than five years, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his ministers have presided over the packing of the Iraqi military and police with Shiite loyalists -- in both the general officer ranks and the rank and file -- while sidelining many effective commanders who led Iraqi troops in the battlefield gains of 2007-2010, a period during which al Qaeda in Iraq (the forerunner of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) was brought to the brink of extinction.

Al-Maliki's "Shiafication" of the Iraqi security forces has been less about the security of Iraq than the security of Baghdad and his regime.

Like the deBaaification of Iraq's civil servants which completley backed fired on the Bush administration.  Iraqi government has caused the Sunni minority to join forces with militants whom they see as conduant for the removeal of the al-Maliki government.

The dismantling of the 'Awakening'

It's no accident that there exists today virtually no Sunni popular resistance to ISIS, but rather the result of a conscious al-Maliki government policy to marginalize theSunni tribal "Awakening" that deployed more than 90,000 Sunni fighters against al Qaeda in 2007-2008.

These 90,000 "Sons of Iraq" made a significant contribution to the reported 90% drop in sectarian violence in 2007-2008, assisting the Iraqi security forces and the United States in securing territory from Mosul to the Sunni enclaves of Baghdad and the surrounding Baghdad "belts." As the situation stabilized, the Iraqi government agreed to a plan to integrate vetted Sunni members of the Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi army and police to make those forces more representative of the overall Iraqi population.

al-Maliki only interested in his own surrivial never intergarted any Sunni military or police offiers into the countries security apperatous.  

Given that the Iraqi government is allied with Iran what happens when the government in Terhran concludes that the situation in that country has become untenable and deploies troops across the border in an effort to shore up the Maliki government?

Could that lead to a wider conflict in the region? Perhaps given that the other countries bordering Iraq are majority Sunni.

Pakistan's fractured unity

What is driving the ongoing violence and prejudice against the country's minorities?


Last week, an area in Peshawar frequented by Shia Muslims was targeted by a suicide bomber. The attack took place a few hours after peace negotiations were initially postponed between the government and the Taliban. At least eight people were killed and 50 injured. This is the most recent incident of violence against Pakistan's estimated 4.5 million-strong population of religious minorities.

Pakistanis online reacted with anger, condemning the government for considering peace talks with the Taliban and accusing it of not doing enough to protect the Shia minority. Pakistan's Shia Muslims make up 20 per cent of the entire population.

How it went wrong for Nawaz Sharif

Pakistan's problems are mounting and Nawaz Sharif's government appears paralysed, just over three months after he swept to election victory on a tide of optimism, reports guest columnist Ahmed Rashid. Where did it go wrong?

When Mr Sharif became prime minister, public expectations were sky high that he would quickly get to grips with Pakistan's most pressing problems - rampant terrorism, multiple insurgencies, an economy in free fall, the lack of electricity and a debilitating foreign policy.

Instead, Mr Sharif has stumbled badly, incurring widespread public anger as terrorism intensifies, the economy worsens and his government appears unable even to fill dozens of critically needed appointments such as senior bureaucratic positions, public corporation chiefs or ambassadors for key posts such as Washington and London.

Moreover, the hope that dialogue with the army would create a civil-military partnership, putting the army and an elected government on the same page for the first time in Pakistan's history, has so far yielded few results.

Most of Pakistan's problems  are of its own making beginning with its complicity in helping the Taliban come to life by supplying them with weapons, tactical and financial support through its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) which at one point was threatened with being placed on the terrorist watch list for its support of the Taliban 

In 2005 and 2008 Pakistan's military government led by General Pervez Musharraf negotiated ceasefires with the Pakistani Taliban only to see them broken and fighting continuing including their taking control of the Swat valley  for several months in 2008 only to be driven back by military offensive. 

Then there insurgencies in several provinces such Balochistan which has been ongoing for decades due to their belief that the government in Islamabad has done nothing to address grievances or improve their economic well being. 

Then there is the sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shia populations which has become more violent due to government inaction.

  

Searching for protection: Pakistan's Shia community

Pakistan's Shia minority continues to face violence across the country.

Is Pakistan’s government unable to provide security for its own citizens? Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned Pakistani militant group, continues to target the Shia community in Balochistan province. After three deadly bombings this year claimed hundreds of lives, members of Pakistan’s Shia minority are taking up arms to defend themselves. We examine the ongoing violence against the country’s Shia community. 

It takes its name from the late Sunni Cleric Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, who spearheaded the anti-Shia campaign which began in the country 30 years ago as a counter-movement to the Iranian Islamic revolution.

Mr Jhangvi was a founding member of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a group blamed by many for introducing sectarian violence to the country.

Researchers say that the Islamisation policy introduced by Pakistan's former military leader, General Zia-ul-Haq, in the 1980s allowed the emergence of SSP in 1985.

Calling themselves "Jhangvi" loyalists, the Lej - or Army of Jhangvi - began allying itself with the Taliban movement which was just taking over in Afghanistan.

Both the Taliban and the LeJ belong to the same orthodox, puritanical Deobandi tradition of Islam associated with the Islamic revivalist movement in the region

Activities

• In March 2002 LJ members bombed a bus, killing 15 people, including 11 French technicians.

• On 17 March 2002 at 11:00 am, two members of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi bombed the International Protestant Church in Islamabadduring a church service. Five people were killed and 40 people were injured, mostly expatriates. In July 2002 Pakistani police killed one of the alleged perpetrators and arrested four Lashkar-e-Jhangvi members in connection with the church attack. The LJ members confessed to the killings and said the attack was in retaliation for the U.S. attack on Afghanistan.

• The Pakistani government Interior Ministry said that the suicide bomber involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto,^[15] along with the death of 20 others in Rawalpindi, belonged to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi on 27 December 2007.^[15]

• Authorities believe Mohammed Aqeel, an LJ member, was the mastermind behind the March 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka national cricket team.^[16]

• LJ claimed responsibility for killing 26 Shia pilgrims on 20 September 2011 in the Mastung area of Balochistan. The pilgrims were travelling on a bus to Iran.^[17][18] In addition, 2 others were killed in a follow-up attack on a car on its way to rescue the survivors of the bus attack.

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai blamed LJ for a bombing that killed 59 people at Abu Fazal shrine in the Murad Khane district of Kabul on 6 December 2011. Most of the dead were pilgrims marking Ashoura, the holiest day in the Shia calendar.^[19][20]

• Lashkar-i-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for 13 lives lost in brutal attack on Shia pilgrims.^[21] QUETTA, 28 June: At least 13 people, two women and a policeman among them, were killed and over 20 others injured on Thursday in a bomb attack on a bus mainly carrying Shia pilgrims returning from Iran. Most of the pilgrims belonged to the Hazara community.

• Claimed responsibility for January 2013 Pakistan bombings in Pakistan killing 125 people.^[22]

• Claimed responsibility for February 2013 Quetta bombings in Pakistan killing 81 and wounding 178, mostly Shia people