ARSAL, Lebanon: Uncertainty and fear are still rife in the rocky Bekaa Valley town of Arsal, with many residents choosing to stay away amid a spate of kidnappings and ongoing fighting between the Lebanese Army and Islamist militants holed up in the mountains along the border. “People are scared,” said Massoud, a middle-aged man living near an Army base in the border town.
The fighting has affected everyone in the area, and the façade of Massoud’s house was strewn with around half a dozen pock marks that he said were the result of a battle between militants and the Lebanese Army a few weeks ago.
The Lebanese Army fired a barrage of rockets at militants Saturday afternoon, following a night of heavy fighting Friday. Militants responded with their own rocket fire, hitting villages near Labweh and Ras Baalbek.
“It was night when they [the militants] snuck up the hill to attack the Army base,” Massoud said, adding that he was unsure which group it was. “Some were in camouflage fatigues and some wore all black.”
His house was hit by return fire from the Lebanese Army. No locals were killed in the fighting.
The weekend’s events came after a dark day for the Army Friday, on which a roadside bomb killed two men on patrol in an armed vehicle and Nusra Front released a video of soldier Mohammaed Maarouf Hammieh being executed. ISIS and Nusra Front are currently holding at least 21 Lebanese servicemen from the Army and police and Nusra is threatening to kill Ali Bazal, another soldier, if the government doesn’t meet their demands soon.
The Army wouldn’t let The Daily Star go any further than the final checkpoint before the town’s center, but residents who have temporarily moved to neighboring villages said the situation in the town had deteriorated significantly.
A mukhtar from Arsal currently renting a house in neighboring Ras Baalbek said he hadn’t been home in a week. “I was threatened so I got in my car and left,” said the man, who asked his name be withheld for fear of retribution. He said his support for the Army had led to his name being put on a list of people wanted by the militants.
“I’m from the biggest family in Arsal, and I haven’t gone into the village in over a week,” said a member of the military in Ras Baalbek.
The security situation in the town has also led to a change in sympathies among Arsal’s residents.
Arsal residents, who number around 35,000, are largely supportive of the Syrian opposition fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime, and for a long time were welcoming toward the influx of refugees flowing across the porous mountain border; the town’s population more than doubled. But residents’ goodwill has been evaporating ever since August, when a five-day battle between the Army and militants from ISIS and the Nusra Front resulted in the death of more than 17 security personnel, as well as severe disruption and damage to the town.
Some Arsalis are starting to associate the refugees with the problems brought to the town by the militants, partially due to what a military intelligence source described as “sleeper cells” among refugees.
“These terrorists are taking advantage of the refugees by having sleeper cells in camps,” said the intelligence officer.
As a result, Arsal’s residents are increasingly fed up with the presence of thousands of refugees.
“Before, people were with the refugees, but now they aren’t,” Massoud said.
As the rocket fire quieted down Saturday afternoon, a group of young boys gathered outside their houses.
When asked how they felt about the presence of Syrian refugees, a slim boy, around 10 years old, responded: “They aren’t any near our houses anymore. They’re all in the camps over there,” pointing in the distance past the town center.
The change in sympathies has also extended to those who used to help the militants, according to the Arsal mukhtar, who said support for them had now waned to just a hardcore few.
“Bakeries used to take 4,000 bags of bread a day to the mountains,” he said. “The Army is now surrounding the village but some people still get through with a few bags of bread by telling the officers that they live on the town’s outskirts.”
He accused members of the local municipality – including Arsal Mayor Ali Hujeiri – of still being sympathetic to ISIS militants, a charge that has been echoed by the father of the latest soldier to be killed by the Nusra Front.
The Hujeiri family, however, has refuted the claims, and has released a statement saying the soldier’s death was terrorism aimed at creating divisions between the residents of the area.
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