Alawites face greatest challenge since Civil War; Rising tide of sunni radicalism poses existential threat to members of sect

Beirut -- HISA, AKKAR: They may have been uprooted "more than 40 times" over the years since Lebanon's Civil War began in 1975, but Hussein Mohammad and his family say they have rarely felt as threatened as they do today. "When Israel did air strikes [in 2006] they dropped leaflets warning us to leave the village. These Salafis are trying to drive us out of the country," said Mohammad, a member of the Alawite sect - an off-shoot of Shiite Islam - referring to followers of an extremist doctrine of Sunni Islam.

Since May, long-standing historical grievances between the Alawites of Tripoli's Jabal Mohsen neighborhood and Sunnis living in adjacent Bab al-Tabbaneh have evolved into an intractable armed conflict, spurred on by political rifts in Beirut and a rising tide of Sunni radicalism in the country.

For Mohammad, his wife and three children it meant fleeing rockets and machine guns that have damaged their home in Jabal Mohsen, amid cries of "jihad against the infidels" from local mosques which have terrified their children and left them fearing for their future.

"Is killing women and children jihad?" asked Mohammad's wife, Fatima Ali Hamoud. Since May, at least 23 people have been killed, hundreds hurt and several thousand Alawite and Sunni families displaced.

For Mohammad's family, finding safety is just one of the challenges they face.

While Sunni families displaced from Bab al-Tabbaneh have been hosted in state schools in Tripoli and supported with food and medicine, the sectarian nature of the conflict has meant nearly all Alawite families have fled North to Akkar, one of Lebanon's poorest regions.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), which has been leading aid efforts in the Northern city of Tripoli, says that nearly two weeks after the fighting began, no international aid agency has yet delivered relief to the hundreds of Alawite families in Akkar.

Mohammad Ali Hussein, mayor of Hisa, one of 15 predominantly Alawite villages in Akkar where residents of Jabal Mohsen have take refuge since May, told IRIN he estimated around 500 Alawite families had had their homes damaged and perhaps half of all Jabal Mohsen's 50,000 residents had been displaced.

Those without friends or family to stay with in Akkar have crossed the nearby border into Syria, where Alawites form a large part of the ruling classes. Those left behind find themselves in a region ill-equipped to care for them.

"A huge number of families left for Syria because we have no capacity to help them," said Hussein. "Our municipal budget went down from $165 million to less than $100 million in the past four years. We have 70 percent unemployment. Since independence [in 1943] no-one has paid attention to Akkar."

The destruction of the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp last year was also a major blow to the local economy, which relied on accessing the tax-free cheaper goods sold inside the camp.

Mohammad's family is now staying with his brother, swelling the family to 13 people living in three rooms. "We're missing everything: food, baby milk, medicine," said Fatima Ali Hamoud, whose youngest daughter is 8 months old.

UNICEF last week asked the mayors of the 15 Alawite villages to provide figures on the number of displaced families and their needs, but the agency has yet to receive a reply.

The economic decline and political mismanagement in Akkar is clearly illustrated by the failure of farming in a region rich in fertile soil and irrigation.

Mohammad Mahmoud, a rugged Alawite with the distinctive blue eyes of his community, used to work the land growing potatoes, the majority of which would usually be purchased by the state-run agricultural wholesaler.

But in recent seasons the state-run firm has been buying less and at lower prices. Where a kilogram of potatoes could once be sold for $0.33 or more, today, farmers in Hisa say, they go for $0.06, or are sold as livestock feed.

Mahmoud gave up farming with debts hanging over him of $15,000, but found money to pay them off and support his family by smuggling diesel fuel from Syria, where it is heavily subsidized, into Lebanon, where it can be sold for nearly triple the price.

"I've now paid off most of my debts and have decided to move my family to Syria," said Mahmoud. "I want to enroll the children in Syrian schools. It's much cheaper to live there and we can be treated just the same as everybody else." - IRIN