Lebanon's role in the Syrian Civil War has been limited, compared to the role of other regional and international actors. While the Lebanese Republic has not been officially involved in the conflict, it has been greatly affected by it and some Lebanese factors have taken an active role in the Syrian War and its spillover into Lebanon.
During the war, conflicting statements were issued by Lebanese politicians in regard to the Syrian Civil War, though in general the Lebanese Republic remained neutral in the conflict. Between 2011 and 2017, fighting from the Syrian Civil War spilled over into Lebanon as opponents and supporters of the Syrian rebels travelled to Lebanon to fight and attack each other on Lebanese soil.
Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War has been substantial since the beginning of the armed insurgency phase of the Syrian Civil War, and turned into active support and troop deployment from 2012 onwards. By 2014, Hezbollah had become actively involved in support of Syrian Ba'athist Government forces across Syria. [1] Hezbollah deployed several thousand fighters in Syria and by 2015 lost up to 1500 fighters in combat. [2]
Since 2011, Lebanon has absorbed Syrian refugees and provided humanitarian aid too. According to the UNHCR, there were over 1 million Syrian refugees who had been registered in Lebanon in 2016. [3]
Lebanon had traditionally been seen by Syria as part of the region of Syria: [4] under the Ottoman Empire, Lebanon and Syria were included within one administrative entity. Following World War I, the League of Nations Mandate partitioned Ottoman Greater Syria under French control, eventually leading to the creation of nation-states Lebanon and Syria. Relations between the two countries had been strained, especially with the 29-year Syrian Occupation of Lebanon, accusations of Syrian intervention within Lebanese politics before and after withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and suspicions of Syria assassinating Lebanese political figures like former prime minister Rafic Hariri.
Syria officially recognized Lebanon's sovereignty in 2008. [5] Lebanon-Syria relations were officially established in October 2008 when Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon for the first time since both countries gained independence from France in 1943. [6]
During the war, conflicting statements were issued by Lebanese politicians in regard to the Syrian Civil War, though in general the Lebanese Republic remained neutral in the conflict. The Hezbollah and Amal affiliated politicians and ministers generally stated in support to the Syrian Ba'athist government, whereas other parties criticized it. Since 2012, Hezbollah actively intervened in the Syrian War, supporting the Ba'athist forces.
Since 2011, Lebanon has absorbed Syrian refugees and provided humanitarian aid too. According to the UNHCR, there were over 1 million Syrian refugees who had been registered in Lebanon in 2016. [3] Nevertheless, this figure is likely largely underestimated since the UNHCR has stopped registering new Syrian refugees since May 2015 and it doesn't include individuals awaiting to be registered. [3] Hence, precise figures of the number of Syrian people in Lebanon don't exist currently. Recent estimates were as high as 1,500,000 people. [7]
Between 2011 and 2017, fighting from the Syrian Civil War spilled over into Lebanon as opponents and supporters of the Syrian rebels travelled to Lebanon to fight and attack each other on Lebanese soil. The Syrian conflict has been described as having stoked a "resurgence of sectarian violence in Lebanon", [8] with many of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims supporting the rebels in Syria, while many Shi'ites have supported Assad, whose Alawite minority is usually described as an offshoot of Shi'a Islam. [9] Killings, unrest, and kidnappings of foreign citizens across Lebanon resulted.
Pro-Syrian forces fought against opposition to the al-Assad presidency in the Bab al-Tabbaneh, Jabal Mohsen clashes, leading to the deaths of three people and more injuries. Tripoli has a majority Sunni Muslim population but also secular pro-Assad Alawites. One Sunni cleric alleged that the Syrian president sent forces into Tripoli to introduce unrest within the region. March 2012 discussions on the national level include concerns that toppling the al-Assad government would result in regional instability for Lebanon and Iraq. [10]
Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War has been substantial since the beginning of armed insurgency phase of the Syrian Civil War, and turned into active support and troop deployment from 2012 onwards. By 2014, Hezbollah involvement begun to turn steady in support of Syrian Ba'athist Government forces across Syria. [1] Hezbollah deployed several thousand fighters in Syria and by 2015 lost up to 1500 fighters in combat. [2] Hezbollah has also been very active to prevent rebel penetration from Syria to Lebanon, being one of the most active forces in the Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon.
In the past, Hezbollah has served a strategic arm of Iran in the region, allegedly playing a key role in the Iran-Israel and Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy conflicts in the middle east. In a number of occasions, Hezbollah weapon convoys in Syria and Syrian-Lebanese border areas were attacked, with Israel being the main suspected party behind most such attacks, though Israel did not claim responsibility except for the March 2017 Israel–Syria incident. Hezbollah convoys have also been attacked by Syrian rebel factions, most notably the Al-Nusra Front.
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon.
Bashar al-Assad is a Syrian politician who is the 19th and current president of Syria since 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He is a son of Hafez al-Assad, who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000.
The Arab Democratic Party (ADP) is a Lebanese political party, based in Tripoli, in the North Lebanon Governorate. Its current leader is Rifaat Eid.
The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided conflict in Syria involving various state-sponsored and non-state actors. In March 2011, popular discontent with the rule of Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring protests in the region. After months of crackdown by the government's security apparatus, various armed rebel groups such as the Free Syrian Army began forming across the country, marking the beginning of the Syrian insurgency. By mid-2012, the crisis had escalated into a full-blown civil war.
This is a broad timeline of the course of major events of the Syrian civil war. It only includes major territorial changes and attacks and does not include every event.
The Bab al-Tabbaneh–Jabal Mohsen conflict was a recurring conflict between the Sunni Muslim residents of the Bab-al-Tabbaneh neighbourhood and the Alawite residents of the Jabal Mohsen neighbourhood of Tripoli, Lebanon from 1976 through 2015. Residents of the two neighbourhoods became rivals during the Lebanese Civil War and frequently engaged in violence. Residents were divided along sectarian lines and by their opposition to or support of the Alawite-led Syrian government. Violence flared up during the Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon.
The Syrian Civil War is an intensely sectarian war. However, the initial phases of the uprising in 2011 featured a broad, cross-sectarian opposition to the rule of Bashar al-Assad, reflecting a collective desire for political reform and social justice, transcending ethnic and religious divisions. Over time, the civil war has largely transformed into a conflict between ruling minority Alawite government and allied Shi'a governments such as Iran; pitted against the country's Sunni Muslim majority who are aligned with the Syrian opposition and its Turkish and Persian Gulf state backers. Sunni Muslims make up the majority of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and many hold high administrative positions, while Alawites and members of almost every minority have also been active on the rebel side.
Lebanese Sunni Muslims refers to Lebanese people who are adherents of the Sunni branch of Islam in Lebanon, which is one of the largest denomination in Lebanon tied with Shias. Sunni Islam in Lebanon has a history of more than a millennium. According to a CIA 2018 study, Lebanese Sunni Muslims constitute an estimated 30.6% of Lebanon's population.
Between 2011 and 2017, fighting from the Syrian civil war spilled over into Lebanon as opponents and supporters of the Syrian Arab Republic traveled to Lebanon to fight and attack each other on Lebanese soil. The Syrian conflict stoked a resurgence of sectarian violence in Lebanon, with many of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims supporting the rebels in Syria, while many of Lebanon's Shi'a Muslims supporting the Ba'athist government of Bashar Al-Assad, whose Alawite minority is usually described as a heterodox offshoot of Shi'ism. Killings, unrest and sectarian kidnappings across Lebanon resulted.
The Axis of Resistance is a network of Iranian-backed militias and political groups in the Middle East, formed by Iran by uniting and grooming armed groups that are dedicated to confront the influence of United States and Israel in the Middle East, and shares hostility toward the countries. The U.S. designates most of these groups as terrorist organizations.
Foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war refers to political, military and operational support to parties involved in the ongoing conflict in Syria that began in March 2011, as well as active foreign involvement. Most parties involved in the war in Syria receive various types of support from foreign countries and entities based outside Syria. The ongoing conflict in Syria is widely described as a series of overlapping proxy wars between the regional and world powers, primarily between the United States and Russia as well as between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The 2012–2014 Quneitra Governorate clashes began in early November 2012, when the Syrian Army began engaging with rebels in several towns and villages of the Quneitra Governorate. The clashes quickly intensified and spilled into the UN-supervised neutral demilitarized zone between Syrian controlled territory and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
On 23 August 2013 two mosques were bombed in Tripoli, Lebanon. 47 people were killed and five hundred more injured in what has been called the "biggest and deadliest" bombing in Tripoli since the end of Lebanon's Civil War. and the bombings are widely considered to be part of the spillover of the Syrian Civil War into Lebanon.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Syrian Arab Republic are close strategic allies, and Iran has provided significant support for the Syrian government in the Syrian civil war, including logistical, technical and financial support, as well as training and some combat troops. Iran sees the survival of the Syrian government as being crucial to its regional interests. When the uprising developed into the Syrian Civil War, there were increasing reports of Iranian military support, and of Iranian training of the National Defence Forces both in Syria and Iran. From late 2011 and early 2012, Iran's IRGC began sending tens of thousands of Iranian troops and foreign paramilitary volunteers in coordination with the Syrian government to prevent the collapse of the Syrian Arab Army; thereby polarising the conflict along sectarian lines.
Following the outbreak of the protests of Syrian revolution during the Arab Spring in 2011 and the escalation of the ensuing conflict into a full-scale civil war by mid-2012, the Syrian Civil War became a theatre of proxy warfare between various regional powers such as Turkey and Iran. Spillover of the Syrian civil war into the wider region began when the Iraqi insurgent group known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) started intervening in the conflict in 2012.
From its inception, the Syrian Civil War has produced and inspired a great deal of strife and unrest in the nation of Lebanon. Prior to the Battle of Arsal in August 2014, the Lebanese Army has tried to keep out of it and the violence has been mostly between various factions within the country and overt Syrian involvement has been limited to airstrikes and occasional accidental incursions.
Israel's official position on the Syrian Civil War has been strict neutrality. However, Israel has become involved politically and militarily to prevent the growing influence and entrenchment of Iranian forces and its proxies throughout Syria. Israel's military activity, officially called Operation Chess, has primarily been limited to missile and air strikes targeting Iranian facilities in Syria as well as those of its proxies, especially Hezbollah. These attacks were not officially acknowledged before 2017. Israel has also carried out air strikes in Syria to disrupt weapons shipments to Hezbollah. By August 2022, the UK investigative non-profit Airwars estimated that 17-45 civilians were killed and another 42-101 civilians were wounded by Israeli airstrikes in Syria since 2013. Syrian reports place these figures much lower than other foreign actors in the conflict. Israel has also provided humanitarian aid to victims of the civil war from 2013 to September 2018, an effort that was ramped up after June 2016 with the launch of Operation Good Neighbour.
Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian civil war has been substantial since the beginning of armed insurgency phase of the Syrian civil war in 2011, and evolved into active support for Syrian government forces and troop deployment from 2012 onwards. By 2014, Hezbollah was deployed across Syria. Hezbollah has also been very active in preventing Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State penetration into Lebanon, being one of the most active forces in the Syrian civil war spillover in Lebanon.
The Eagles of the Whirlwind are the armed wing of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Around 6,000 to 8,000 men strong, they participated in many battles and operations throughout the Syrian Civil War fighting alongside the Syrian government and its allies.
