Lebanon's Sunnis teetering on the fault line of conflict

TRIPOLI, LEBANON — The cleric's question echoed off the walls of the mosque in one of Tripoli's poorest neighborhoods -- and well beyond.

"What is happening to our community?" cried Sheik Mazen Mohammed. "Where are we heading?"

Many of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims, especially in the northern part of the country, are asking themselves the same question Mohammed posed during prayers on a recent Friday.

The community has been fractured by a battle between the Lebanese army and an extremist Sunni group inspired by Al Qaeda, and an ensuing government crackdown against Islamists. More radical Sunnis are facing off against moderate supporters of the U.S.-backed government.

"We're beginning to see cracks in the Sunni community," said Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut. Khashan, like the Sunni-led government, charged that Syria had helped the Fatah al Islam militant group establish itself in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon in order to create instability.

"Syria is trying to cause the Sunni sect to splinter," he said.

Near the camp, in the Sunni-dominated city of Tripoli, home to about 500,000 people, a complex set of allegiances have now been spelled out in blood.

In the Tebanne neighborhood, where children play barefoot in trash-littered streets and dilapidated buildings still bear bullet holes from Lebanon's 15-year civil war, Sunni families have buried sons -- both soldiers and militants.

On June 10, thousands of people rallied in Tripoli to voice their support for the Lebanese army.

Banners supporting the army are on display all over the city, but so are the Muslim extremists' black flags as well as graffiti expressing support for holy war against Americans.

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Militant foothold

Fatah al Islam, which is holed up in the Nahr el Bared refugee camp, is a mix of fighters from other Arab countries and young Lebanese men from the area, where some Islamist groups subscribe to Al Qaeda's ideology.

"The phenomenon of Fatah al Islam is a result of the marginalization, injustice and harm that Muslims are subjected to," said Daiat Shahal, a prominent religious scholar in Tripoli. However, he said, "this war is between Sunnis and will eventually weaken the Sunnis."

Most Sunni religious leaders with ties to the government have distanced themselves from the Islamist group. And a committee of Palestinian clerics has held talks with the militants in an attempt to end the fighting, the bloodiest the nation has seen since the end of the civil war in 1990.