Lebanon Recalls Civil War as Latest Unrest Threatens New Strife

Mourners carry the coffin of Pascal Sleiman, an official of the Lebanese Forces party, during his funeral in Jbeil, Lebanon, 12 April 2024. (EPA)
Mourners carry the coffin of Pascal Sleiman, an official of the Lebanese Forces party, during his funeral in Jbeil, Lebanon, 12 April 2024. (EPA)
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Lebanon Recalls Civil War as Latest Unrest Threatens New Strife

Mourners carry the coffin of Pascal Sleiman, an official of the Lebanese Forces party, during his funeral in Jbeil, Lebanon, 12 April 2024. (EPA)
Mourners carry the coffin of Pascal Sleiman, an official of the Lebanese Forces party, during his funeral in Jbeil, Lebanon, 12 April 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon commemorated on Saturday the 49th anniversary of the Lebanese civil war that erupted on April 13, 1975, and ended in 1990 with the adoption of the Taif Accord.

The war left over 200,000 people dead, thousands missing, and massive destruction of state infrastructure and institutions.

People who lived through the war are now warning that the factors that led to its eruption are available now, saying they are almost identical to the conditions that were present in 1975.

The saying “history repeats itself” doesn’t seem to mean anything to the people in Lebanon, said former minister and MP Butros Harb.

He recalled that the “sympathy shown by some Lebanese people, especially its Sunnis, to the Palestinians allowed the Palestine Liberation Organization to effectively seize control of the country” in the 1970s, which was one of the sources of tension that led to the war.

“Today, the Shiite sect, represented by Hezbollah, is insisting on sympathizing with Iran and its interests, again placing Lebanon on a path that may be more dangerous than what took place in the past,” Harb told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“The situation today is much more challenging because it pits you in a confrontation with one segment of the Lebanese people – the Shiites – causing a deep division between two camps: one that wants life, stability and prosperity and another that wants martyrdom and to keep fighting and place the country in a constant state of war,” he added.

Harb spoke of factors that helped Hezbollah seize control of Lebanon, such as its shared interest with Christian and non-Christian parties. He criticized former President Michel Aoun, who “in order to become president, obstructed state functioning and allowed Hezbollah to run rampant.”

“Lebanon now habitually lives in a state where it doesn’t have a president or a functioning government or constitutional institutions,” he went on to say.

“Lebanon will never become livable and rid itself of the constant cycle of wars if the Lebanese people don’t wake up and abandon their loyalty to Iran, the Arabs, United States and others,” warned Harb.

“My heart breaks and I ache over what has become of Lebanon,” he said.

Lebanese politician Toufik Sultan echoed Harb’s remarks, saying the factors that sparked the civil war are still present now, including the warlords who were active back then and who still control the country today.

“No one learned from the tragedies of the past,” he lamented in remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat.”

“The players who were active during the war are still present today,” he noted.

“Lebanon is a sick country whose only treatment lies in abandoning sectarianism and for the sects to let go of the interests of their leaders,” he stressed.

Moreover, he said the kidnapping and killing of Pascal Sleiman, the Lebanese Forces coordinator in Jbeil, around a week ago was a major shock in Lebanon that could have led to “rampant chaos.”

On Monday, the army said Sleiman, who had gone missing the day before, was killed in a carjacking by Syrian gang members who then took his body across the border.

His killing has deepened sectarian and political faultines in Lebanon, raising fears of armed clashes between rival factions in a country already beset by a deep economic crisis, and cross-border shelling linked to the Gaza War.

Government and religious officials rushed to quell tensions after the killing prompted fears of renewed street brawls between rival parties and triggered beatings of Syrians.

Lebanon hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing the war that erupted in their homeland in 2011. Last year, Lebanese security forces deported dozens of refugees in what rights groups called a violation of international law.

Harb warned that Sleiman’s killing could lead to chaos in Lebanon. “Such practices could lead Syrians in Lebanon to seek any means to defend themselves, stay alive and maintain their sources of income,” he went on to say. He also warned against attempts to exploit the Syrians to deliberately stir strife.

He acknowledged that the presence of the refugees throughout the country was “very dangerous for Lebanon,” calling for “finding a way to return them home.”

He heavily blamed the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement MP Gebran Bassil for the problem, recalling that when the Syrians first started pouring into Lebanon at the beginning of the conflict, he had “strongly opposed at cabinet the establishment of camps where they could be sheltered under United Nations supervision.”

The unrest and weakening of official authorities are a reflection of the weakness of the state and inability to elect a new president, form a new government and enact reforms that would resolve several crises.

Sultan said tackling the situation and averting a new war can only take place through an internal settlement that would be less costly than listening to foreign dictates.

“Whoever has risen to the top must show some humility and reach an understanding with their partners in the nation to avoid strife that could destroy the country,” he urged.

Furthermore, he warned that the refugee problem was “a danger to all the Lebanese people, not just its Christians,” but violence is not the way to resolve it.

“The Syrian presence in Lebanon would not have become so problematic were it not for international opposition to their return home, which is part of a conspiracy against Lebanon,” he said.



Syrians Return to Homs, ‘Capital of the Revolution’ 

A girl holds an independence-era Syrian flag out of the window of a bus carrying displaced Syrians returning home after years of displacement in the northern Aleppo province, at the entrance of the central city of Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
A girl holds an independence-era Syrian flag out of the window of a bus carrying displaced Syrians returning home after years of displacement in the northern Aleppo province, at the entrance of the central city of Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
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Syrians Return to Homs, ‘Capital of the Revolution’ 

A girl holds an independence-era Syrian flag out of the window of a bus carrying displaced Syrians returning home after years of displacement in the northern Aleppo province, at the entrance of the central city of Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
A girl holds an independence-era Syrian flag out of the window of a bus carrying displaced Syrians returning home after years of displacement in the northern Aleppo province, at the entrance of the central city of Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)

Once dubbed the capital of the revolution against Bashar al-Assad, Homs saw some of the fiercest fighting in Syria's civil war. Now, displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods, only to find them in ruins.

It was in Homs that the opposition first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on peaceful protests in 2011.

The military responded by besieging and bombarding rebel areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin and French journalist Remi Ochlik were killed in a bombing in 2012.

Since Assad's ouster, people have started returning to neighborhoods they fled following successive evacuation agreements that saw Assad take back control.

"The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity," said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

"We removed the rubble, laid a carpet" and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

"Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land."

Her husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.

The siege of Homs lasted two years and killed around 2,200 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

During the siege, thousands of civilians and opposition fighters were left with nothing to eat but dried foods and grass.

In May 2014, under an evacuation deal negotiated with the former government, most of those trapped in the siege were evacuated, and two years later, Assad seized the last opposition district of Waer.

"We were besieged... without food or water, under air raids, and barrel bombings," before being evacuated to the opposition-held north, Turki said.

A boy walks past the debris of buildings in the Khaldiyeh district in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)

- 'Precious soil of Homs' -

AFP journalists saw dozens of families returning to Homs from northern Syria, many of them tearful as they stepped out of the buses organized by local activists.

Among them was Adnan Abu al-Ezz, 50, whose son was wounded by shelling during the siege and who later died because soldiers at a checkpoint barred him from taking him to hospital.

"They refused to let me pass, they were mocking me," he said with tears in his eyes.

"I knew my house was nearly destroyed, but I came back to the precious soil of Homs," he said.

While protests and fighting spread across Syria over the course of the 13-year war, Homs's story of rebellion holds profound symbolism for the demonstrators.

It was there that Abdel Basset al-Sarout, a football goalkeeper in the national youth team, joined the protests and eventually took up arms.

He became something of a folk hero to many before he joined an armed group and was eventually killed in fighting.

In 2013, his story became the focus of a documentary by Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki named "The Return to Homs", which won international accolades.

Homs returnee Abu al-Moatasim, who remembers Sarout, recounted being detained for joining a protest.

When he saw security personnel approaching in a car, he prayed for "God to drop rocket on us so I die" before reaching the detention center, one of a network dotted around the country that were known for torture.

His father bribed an officer in exchange for his release a few days later, he said.

A vegetable vendor waits for customers in front of a damaged building in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)

- 'Build a state' -

In Baba Amr, for a time early in the war a bastion of the opposition Free Syrian Army, there was rubble everywhere.

The army recaptured the district in March 2012, following a siege and an intense bombardment campaign.

It was there that Colvin and Ochlik were killed in a bombing of an opposition press center.

In 2019, a US court found Assad's government culpable in Colvin's death, ordering a $302.5 million judgement for what it called an "unconscionable" attack that targeted journalists.

Touring the building that housed the press center, Abdel Qader al-Anjari, 40, said he was an activist helping foreign journalists at that time.

"Here we installed the first internet router to communicate with the outside world," he said.

"Marie Colvin was martyred here, targeted by the regime because they did not want (anyone) to document what was happening," he said.

He described her as a "friend" who defied the "regime blackout imposed on journalists" and others documenting the war.

After leaving Homs, Anjari himself became an opposition fighter, and years later took part in the offensive that ousted Assad on December 8, 2024.

"Words cannot describe what I felt when I reached the outskirts of Homs," he said.

Now, he has decided to lay down his arms.

"This phase does not call for fighters, it calls for people to build a state," he said.