BRITAL, Lebanon: “We don’t fear Daesh because if it enters Lebanon and terrorizes people the 1-year-old infant will carry a gun, and the women will fight,” said the former Army officer, dressed in military fatigues. “Daesh stops here.”The former officer, who declined to give his name, was speaking two days after fighters from the Nusra Front briefly took over a Hezbollah checkpoint in the mountains outside Brital before being driven back. Daesh has become a catch-all term for Syrian militants fighting on the Lebanese-Syrian border, the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
The peace that now reigns in Brital contrasts with the defiance of the well-armed residents of the majority-Shiite town of some 30,000 in the northeast. The residents say they do not fear the militants, despite their well-publicized extreme violence and the recent beheading of two Lebanese Army soldiers held in captivity on the outskirts of nearby Arsal.
“If Daesh comes I want to slaughter them,” said the former officer, who rushed with hundreds, possibly thousands of local residents to the rugged hills between Brital and the Syrian border when news of the militant attack arrived. “I want to defend my country, my land, my honor, everything.”
Portraits of Hezbollah martyrs are common in the town.
Residents held a subdued funeral for one of the party’s fighters who was killed in the clashes.
Brital’s residents are well-armed, the town thriving in the weapons trade, and locals believe strongly in self-defense amid the absence of the state. The local checkpoint that was attacked by the Nusra Front was originally manned by local watchmen and was set up a year ago, but was handed over to Hezbollah two months earlier.
From there, residents would often pound militant positions observed from the hills down in the nearby valley within the Syrian border, between Brital’s outskirts and the Syrian village of Asal al-Ward, which was contested by the regime, Hezbollah and the militants.
Many of the town’s residents are sympathetic to or supporters of Hezbollah, but are not necessarily affiliated with the party. They support its intervention in Syria because they believe it blocked the militants’ advance into Lebanon.
“ Hezbollah did not enter Syria to gain great victories, but to protect Lebanon,” the former officer said.
In their accounts, it was local residents who formed the core of the rapid response to the Nusra Front’s attack. Locals estimate that about 3,000 Brital residents immediately drove up to a checkpoint less than a kilometer from the militants position.
They also offered a harrowing account of the day’s drama, which lasted from about 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. when the residents returned to their homes.
Brital’s reliance on self-defense is one that mirrors other towns on the border that have taken security into their own hands, establishing local guard units, observation posts and patrols to deter attacks, as well as instituting curfews on refugees.
“We have nothing to do with our Syrian brothers who are calling themselves Daesh and Nusra, but when they destroy their country and then come to destroy Lebanon and are threatening us, it became the duty of residents, of Hezbollah, of the state, to confront this threat,” said Qassem Tleiss, a prominent Brital resident who trained fighters during the early 1980s in the Revolutionary Guard, the precursor force that gave rise to Hezbollah, though he is no longer affiliated with the party.
Tleiss said he could only guess at the reason that sparked this particular attack on Brital, though he said the militants likely sought a foothold in Lebanon or may be growing desperate due to the onset of winter.
But he said they faced a town with a history of contributing to Lebanon’s resistance movements, from the anti-Ottoman guerrillas to the resistance against Israel.
In his recounting of the weekend incidents, Tleiss said the Hezbollah guards at the observation posts were “careless,” and apparently did not expect an attack on the area.
But once news of the assault reached the townsfolk, they were armed within half an hour and drove in large convoys up to a nearby outpost, less than a kilometer from where the attack took place.
“Within half an hour all of Brital had armed itself with its own weapons and vehicles and bravery, not for any party but to defend our land no matter the cost,” he said. “Daesh will take the land of Brital over our dead bodies.”
A.T., who asked that only his initials be used, said he joined the convoys as they drove up to the outpost. He showed video recordings of the scene on his mobile phone, with dozens of SUVs lining the mountaintop and looking out to the post that was taken over by the militants.
He said that a Hezbollah fighter, whose brother was killed in the battle, decided to attack the outpost with a Kornet rocket while residents peppered it with mortar bombs and gunfire. After the fighting was over, the residents found the mangled remains of five militants, the bodies of the guards and the remains of a launchpad that the militants were apparently preparing to fire at the residents.
One of the guards was found with his ammo expended, said Tleiss, showing that he had not surrendered and fought to the very end.
Hezbollah fighters who reached the scene pleaded with the residents to stay back in case the area was rigged with explosives.
“They even tied the hands of the martyr and pulled him along the ground to see if he was booby trapped,” A.T. said.
But Brital’s residents remained defiant, saying they did not fear the militant threat. The aim, they said, is to sow division.
“They are killing Sunnis, they’re not here just for the Shiites,” Tleiss said. “The existence of ISIS is all about strife, division, slaughter and criminality.”
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