INSTABILITY IMPEDES LEBANON'S RECOVERY

Lebanon crisis

Last reviewed: 17-10-2008
INSTABILITY IMPEDES LEBANON'S RECOVERY

A man waves a Lebanese flag near a damaged building at the former green line.
REUTERS/Jamal Saidi Years after the end of its lengthy civil war, Lebanon's ongoing instability is impeding its reconstruction and recovery.

15 years of factional fighting ended in 1990
Sectarian divisions remain
An estimated million cluster bombs dropped in 2006 Israeli bombardment

Lebanon is a tiny country with a bewildering number of different religious groups including Christian sects, Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims and Druze. Many of these formed armed divisions during its 1975-1990 civil war - which also involved Syria, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation - and are represented in a power-sharing government installed at the end of the war.

Lebanon also has a large refugee population - some 400,000 Palestinians are housed in camps across the country. Lebanese security forces are not allowed to enter the camps under a 1969 Arab accord, leaving a security vacuum filled by Palestinian armed groups. These groups include the Al Qaeda-inspired militants Fatah al-Islam. The Lebanese government says that the group, which emerged late 2006, is a tool used by Syria to stir up instability. Both Syria and Fatah al-Islam deny any connection.

In May 2007, violence flared as the Lebanese army engaged in a bitter struggle with Fatah al-Islam militants based in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared north of Tripoli.

Tens of thousands of the camp's residents were displaced by the fighting, while thousands more endured a humanitarian crisis within the camp.

By the time the army gained control three months later, much of the camp had been razed to the ground. UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, has said that the reconstruction of Nahr al Bared will be one of the largest humanitarian projects in the organisation's history.

Militias in Lebanon are in defiance of the Taif Accord that ended the civil war and a 2004 U.N. Security Council resolution calling for all groups in Lebanon to be disarmed.

Lebanon's biggest armed group, Hezbollah or the "Party of God", emerged in the 1980s as a resistance force against the occupation of the south of the country by Israeli troops. Israel withdrew in 2000, and since then it has retained widespread support among the Lebanese for its role in defending the country.

Hezbollah, while backed with Iranian funding, is also a political and social force within Lebanon, providing healthcare and education for the country's Shi'ite community. Apart from a period between November 2006 and July 2008 when it became a self-styled opposition, it is also part of the multi-confessional Lebanese government.

In July 2006, a month-long war with Israel resulted in a massive military bombardment of Lebanon by Israeli forces. The conflict re-ignited when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid. Israel retaliated with air strikes and ground offensives, destroying infrastructure and effectively cutting Lebanon off from the outside world. Hezbollah, for its part, launched waves of rocket attacks on northern Israel.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in August 2006, nearly 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, two-thirds of them soldiers, had been killed in the conflict. More than 900,000 Lebanese had been displaced and the country faced a humanitarian crisis.

Unexploded cluster bombs dropped by the Israelis in the closing days of the conflict turned large swathes of farmland into no-go areas - a measure condemned by U.N. chief Jan Egeland as "completely immoral". The demining of the bombs - estimated at around a million - is a lengthy process which is ongoing and civilians are still being killed and maimed by them.

A U.N. peacekeeping force that had been in Lebanon since the civil war was expanded to help the Lebanese army monitor developments in the south and allow humanitarian work to be done.

However, in the aftermath of the war, internal tensions within Lebanon worsened. A split emerged between those who backed the coalition behind the government led by Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora known as March 14th and the opposition, led by Hezbollah and followers of the Christian leader Michel Aoun.

The government came close to collapse in November 2006, when five pro-Syrian Shi'ite cabinet ministers resigned in a bid for a greater share of political power. The opposition's campaign was accompanied by ongoing sit-in protests outside the government buildings in central Beirut.

The political division also turns on a disagreement over the role of Syria in Lebanese affairs, following the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a car bomb in February 2005.

The assassination sparked massive anti-Syrian rallies by those who blamed Syria for his death. International pressure on Syria to withdraw its troops, which had been in Lebanon since 1976, resulted in the departure of Syrian forces from Lebanon in April 2005.

There was also widespread disagreement about the legitimacy of a U.N. investigation into the murder and - unprecedented in Lebanese affairs - the establishment of a U.N. tribunal to try the suspects.

Since Hariri's death, a string of anti-Syrian politicians and journalists have been assassinated, including parliamentary deputy Walid Eido MP, in a series of bombings that accompanied the Nahr al Bared conflict.

In 2007, the issue of who should succeed the pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud increasingly divided the country's main political camps: the pro-Hariri government and Hezbollah-led opposition. In November 2007 Lahoud's term of office came to an end, leaving a constitutional vacuum instead of a successor.

May 2008 saw the worst violence since the civil war following a row between the government and the opposition about Hezbollah's telecommunications network.

In the subsequent fighting, Hezbollah took over government-controlled areas and handed them over to the army, the only institution widely regarded as being neutral. Sectarian clashes spread across the country and tens of people, including many civilians, were killed.

After repeated attempts by parliament to elect a new head of state were abandoned, in late May 2008 the leaders of both sides finally signed a deal and army chief General Michel Suleiman was elected as president.

In July, following protracted negotiations between rival political factions, a national unity government was formed.