Approaching Hoofbeats

AFP: Lebanon Sunni sheikh urges followers to join Syria fight

The civil war in Lebanon keeps getting messier.  So many nations with a proxy in the fight.  One day this civil war will end and the men who fought in it will be combat veterans and religiously motivated.  They will be organized, have the best weapons money can buy and they'll be looking for their next target.  Psalm 83...?

BEIRUT — Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, a controversial Lebanese Salafist sheikh, has urged his followers to join Syrian rebels fighting troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah.

The call came as a second Sunni Lebanese sheikh called the fight against Assad's regime a "jihadist duty."

"Today, everyone recognises the danger posed by the intervention of (Hezbollah chief Hassan) Nasrallah and his shabiha (pro-Assad militia) in Syria," Assir, who is based in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, told his followers late Monday.

Syria's opposition and monitoring groups have accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of sending elite fighters to battle alongside regime troops in Qusayr, an area of Syria's central Homs province near the Lebanese border.

"Nasrallah and his shabiha have taken the decision to enter into these areas (Qusayr) in order to massacre the oppressed people there," Assir added.

"There is a religious duty on every Muslim who is able to do so... to enter into Syria in order to defend its people, its mosques and religious shrines, especially in Qusayr and Homs."

Assir said joining the fight in Homs is "especially a duty for the Lebanese because Lebanon provides the only gateway" into central Syria.

He said his address mainly targeted "residents of the border areas," but added: "This fatwa (religious decree) affects us all, especially those who have military experience."

Assir has seen his following swell in the last year, in part due to his firebrand speeches and staunch opposition to Hezbollah, the Shiite Lebanese movement allied with Assad's regime. 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i8_qDclohcv8zDeeFFz50REKU5sQ?docId=CNG.a002dc6b3bd491731d0ebc4ad2b385fb.b1