Salafist leader calls on Lebanon to return weapons, lift warrant

BEIRUT: A prominent leader of the Salafist movement in Lebanon called on the government to return his weapons seized at his colleague’s residence in Tripoli, stressing his right to defend himself.

Sheikh Dai al-Islam al-Shahhal, a pioneer of the Salafist movement in Lebanon, said in an interview with Ash-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper published Sunday that the weapons seized at the residence of Sheikh Bilal Deqmaq Friday belonged to him.

He called on the government to lift an arrest warrant that was issued against Deqmaq and to return the confiscated weapons.

Shahhal said Deqmaq had moved the arms to his own residence after rumors about possible Army raids on Shahhal’s residence and that of hard-line Akkar MP Khaled Daher.

“The situation in the city got tense, so I contacted Sheikh Deqmaq and asked him to prevent a security escalation,” Shahhal said. “In light of the events and due to upon my request, Sheikh Deqmaq volunteered to move the weapons from my house to his apartment to prevent strife or clashes.”

The Salafist figure said that he had the right to own the weapons, which varied from machine guns to sniper rifles, and hand and rocket-propelled grenades, as well as other military equipment.

“Like all religious security and political officials in the country, I have the right to own weapons to defend myself,” Shahhal stressed, claiming that the huge quantities of weapons that the Army seized Friday also belonged to his bodyguards.

“A couple of years ago, I only had four to five rifles to use in personal guard, but after the events of May 7 and Abra, and the escalation of the clashes between Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh, as well as the absence of the Army on many occasions, I decided to take more precautions in defense of myself, my family and the young men that work for me.”

The extremist preacher, who is subject to an arrest warrant last week after he threatened to attack the Army in a recorded message, condemned the seizing of weapons from Deqmaq’s residence while other figures own arms warehouses all over Lebanon.

The sheikh had said in the recording that the Army was a tool being used by Hezbollah against the Sunnis of Lebanon, and indirectly called on Sunni soldiers to defect.

“Don’t you kill a Sunni believer,” he told them, warning they would face punishment in the afterlife if they fought against jihadists.

The Army launched a crackdown on locations, warehouses and residences of militants in Tripoli and other north Lebanon villages since early last week. The raids came after days of fierce clashes with militants inside and near the city, during which the military took control of the militants’ headquarters in Bab al-Tabbaneh.

After years of clashes in Tripoli, mostly between the Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood and the mostly Alawite Jabal Mohsen, the Army has stepped up efforts to disarm militants in the northern city. Shahhal and the Salafist movement has taken a hard-line stance toward politics in the country, claiming that the Sunni people are being targeted by the Hezbollah-owned state. The speech is very similar to that used by the Nusra Front to incite Lebanese Sunnis against Shiites and Hezbollah.