BEIRUTSTATEofMIND: Tremors in the Wadi

As fighting between the Assad regime aided by Hezbollah and the opposition Free Syrian Army has escalated in Qusair in Homs province communities along the Lebanese border with Syria are being increasingly drawn into the conflict: both directly, as is the case of Hezbollah, operating in Qusair from their bases in the Bekaa valley centred around Hermel, and involuntarily, as is the case in the northern Lebanese valley of Wadi Khaled: a place where many refugees from Qusair have found safe haven amongst a community sympathetic to their struggles and the occasional cross-border shelling has become far from uncommon.

Last week BEIRUTSTATEofMIND spent a couple of days in the northern Lebanese valley speaking with recent waves of refugees, local residents and municipal figures, and members of the Syrian opposition. In a majority Sunni pro-Mustaqbal region, apprehension over the increasing involvement of Hezbollah in Syria was palpable, as was a lack of confidence in the Lebanese Army's ability to defend the community from further cross-border shelling. Recent Sunni immigrants, hailing from Syrian villages visible from the Wadi, spoke of being increasingly pushed out of their villages by pro-Assad elements. A phenomena they linked with the Assad regime's desire to establish a "safe-zone" of exclusive regime control in the heartland of their support. Beginning from the Hezbollah stronghold of Hermel in the Lebanese Bekaa and snaking its way up the Lebanese-Syrian border to the coastal cities of Tartus, Latakia, and Banias, often referred to as the Alawite heartland of the embattled regime.

... The Article BEIRUTSTATEofMIND penned from the trip can be found HERE ...

Since the outbreak of Syria's civil war over 27,000 refugees have made their way to the Wadi, supplementing an existing population of 40,000 that already ranked amongst Lebanon's poorest. Given a relative dearth in national and international effort to cope with the influx many families in the Wadi have provided safe-haven for those fleeing Syria, in their homes. During BEIRUTSTATEofMIND's visit to the Wadi, we met with Firas, a local resident who works in a mobile phone shop in Jounieh and whose family have provided shelter to no fewer than 14 Syrian families in a property, under-construction, that Firas had planned to move into upon completion. In the evening's many of those who Firas and his family host join them in their main salon after dinner for a few cups of tea. The topic of conversation is usually political. The relationship between the families, amicable, as it seems in much of the Wadi.