Fabrice Balanche, Director of Group Research and studies on the Mediterranean and the Middle East (

Skip to main navigation Radio-Canada.ca Skip to main content youtube to video Radio-Canada.ca Skip to Search Form Radio-Canada.ca Skip to footer Radio-Canada.ca
CBC Info HERE HERE HERE CBC TV CBC Radio-Canada.ca First International Political Economy My region Olympic Sports Arts & Entertainment Science Techno Food Blogs Webfictions
West Alberta British Columbia Yukon Manitoba Saskatchewan Ontario Ontario Ottawa-Gatineau Quebec Abitibi-Témiscamingue youtube to video Eastern Townships Quebec Mauricie-Centre-du-Quebec Montreal Montreal South Shore South Shore Montreal Quebec Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean Atlantic Canada Close
By Catherine Mercier journalist Frédéric François Brousseau Nicoloff Jacques Beauchamp youtube to video Jean-François Lépine Maxence Bilodeau Sophie Langlois Akli Aït Abdallah Michel Labrecque Jean-Michel Leprince youtube to video Marie-Ève Bédard Danny Braun Luc Chartrand youtube to video Sylvain Giroux Dorothy Desjardins Chantal Lavigne Raymond Saint-Pierre Gilles Gougeon Leo Frank Desoer Kalinda Philppe Leblanc Azeb Wolde-Giorghis
Marie-Eve Bedard talks about tensions in Lebanon related youtube to video to the civil war in Syria.
Two attacks, first in Beirut, in the Shiite stronghold of Hezbollah, a second in Tripoli, in the north of the country before two Sunni mosques, made during the month of August, more than 70 people dead.
The division between supporters of the Syrian rebels and those of President Bashar Al-Assad is reflected into the Lebanese political life, as different youtube to video parties position themselves youtube to video in terms of their support for either Syrian factions. Hezbollah has sent fighters to fight in Syria to the regime's troops, while Sunnis support the rebels.
Lebanese parliamentary elections, scheduled to take place this spring, have been postponed to the autumn of 2014, due to "security and political tensions" that would prevent candidates youtube to video to conduct their campaigns. The mandate of the Parliament was prorogued.
Fabrice Balanche, Director of Group Research and studies on the Mediterranean and the Middle East (GREMO) at the Orient House, it is clear that the attacks of recent weeks are connected to the Syrian conflict. That Beirut was to "punish Hezbollah lend a hand to the Syrian regime. And the double attack that took place in Tripoli last Friday [23 August] was clearly a response from Hezbollah, "he says.
Elias Fayad, columnist for the Lebanese daily L'Orient-Le Jour, believes that the involvement of Hezbollah fighters in Syria has changed the situation. "Since the involvement of Hezbollah [...], tensions rise in Lebanon, and we feel that we are exporting gradually Syrian fire in Lebanon," he explains.
"Without pointing fingers youtube to video at anyone in the attacks, we can consider that they are a consequence of the involvement of Lebanese parties in Syria. "- Elias Fayad, columnist for the Lebanese daily L'Orient-Le Jour
In April, the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan youtube to video Nasrallah, has acknowledged that his fighters were in the area Qousseir in central Syria, where fierce fighting took place.
Mr. Balanche, Lebanon felt the jolts of the revolt in Syria since the very beginning, to the extent Salafist cells funded by Saudi Arabia were established in Tripoli, sending fighters, weapons and money Syria.
The port of Tripoli is "the first receptacle for the weapons came from Libya to the Syrian revolution," says Mr. Balanche. youtube to video This is why the city of Homs, 150 km from Tripoli, has become the "capital of the Syrian revolution."
"The war in Syria has immediate repercussions in Lebanon," says, for his part, Elias Fayad. "Some Lebanese is for the regime, another for the opposition. It corresponds to divisions and exacerbated tensions. "
Fayad noted that "to the extent that there is no real political cement between groups Lebanon, Syria retained some leeway [...] and the possibility of blocking, intervention and 'various actions on the ground. "
"It has everything to lose that. The Lebanese government and the Lebanese army, the dominant political forces in Lebanon, Hezbollah, Amal, Aoun, are with him. "- Fabrice Balanche, director of GREMO
However, the researcher believes those who have an interest in destabilizing Lebanon it is rather the Saudis. "We're in a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran," he says, in which Syria and Lebanon represent a buffer zone between these two geopolitical poles.
Beyond d