The Sunni Tragedy in the Middle East Northern Lebanon from Al-Qaeda to ISIS By Bernard Rougier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.259 pages.)

Abstract

Northern Lebanon, the mountainous terrain bordering Syria and the coastal
plain centered on the city of Tripoli with its nearly 130,000 residents, has long
been the heartland of the country’s Sunni Arabs, along with the old scholastic
and population hub in the southern city of Sidon. The outbreak of mass popular
protests and eventually armed rebellion in neighboring Syria against
Bashar al-Asad’s government in the spring of 2011, and that country’s continuing
descent into an increasingly violent and sectarian civil war, has had a
profound effect upon Lebanon, particularly in the north, for both geographical
and demographic reasons. First, northern Lebanon borders strategic areas of
central-western Syria (e.g., the town of al-Qusayr) and is located just south of
the major Syrian port city of Tartus. Second, the north’s population includes
significant minority communities of Christians and Alawis, the latter of which
are largely aligned politically with Damascus. These factors have made the
border regions particularly dangerous, for while the Lebanese army attempts
to maintain control of the country’s territory, Iran-aligned Hizbullah pours
fighters and military supplies into Syria and militant Sunni groups (e.g., ISIS
and Jabhat Fath al-Sham [JFS]) seek to establish a foothold in Lebanon from
which they can pursue their anti-Asad campaign.
Bernard Rougier is uniquely placed to write about the contemporary history
and complex web of politics among Lebanon’s Sunni factions and particularly
the rise of jihadi militancy among some of its segments. The book
under review, like Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam among Palestinians
in Lebanon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), is
based upon extensive in-country fieldwork and interviews beginning in the
early 2000s and ending in 2014. It provides a fascinating and nuanced
overview of jihadism’s rise as a viable avenue of political frustration and expression
in the wider milieu of Lebanon’s intra-Sunni socio-political competition
and a fast-changing regional situation.
Rougier argues that the contentious political disputes and competition
among the country’s mainstream Sunni political figures (e.g., the al-Hariri
family), as well as the impact of Syrian control of large parts of Lebanon between
1976 and 2005 and ensuing power vacuum after its withdrawal, enabled
the emergence of jihadi militancy. Northern Lebanon also became a center of
competition among regional actors through their local allies, which pitted ...