The Rise and Fall of Lebanese Salafist Firebrand Cleric Shaykh Ahmad al-Assir
The Rise and Fall of Lebanese Salafist Firebrand Cleric Shaykh Ahmad al-Assir
Lebanese Sunni cleric Shaykh Ahmad al-Assir has become one of the most controversial and outspoken critics of Hezbollah’s entrance into the Syrian conflict and the group’s growing influence in Lebanese politics. His transformation from populist imam to incendiary radical reflects not only the increasing sectarianization of the region, but also the emergence of Salafism-Jihadism as an outgrowth of both the war in Syria and the dearth of Lebanese Sunni political leadership. Although he never gained widespread popular support, al-Assir’s confrontations with Hezbollah and the government made him into a powerful political symbol and source of inspiration within the Salafist-Jihadist community in Lebanon. Al-Assir had been in hiding until his arrest on August 14, 2015 at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut (Daily Star [Beirut], August 15). Authorities detained him carrying a forged Palestinian passport as he attempted to fly to Cairo en route to Nigeria, marking a key step for Lebanon in its challenging quest to limit the spillover of violence from Syria. Al-Assir was wanted for his role in a 2013 battle between his followers and the Lebanese Armed Forces, in which at least 50 people were killed.
Lebanon is the epitome of controlled chaos: the government has failed to elect a president since May 2014, nearly two million Syrian refugees have overwhelmed the country’s humanitarian and economic capacities and parts of the country remain ungovernable. Despite successfully avoiding an all-out war, Lebanon’s sectarian balance is fragile. Hezbollah’s tangible support for Bashar al-Assad, combined with the Lebanese state’s perceived marginalization of Syrian refugees and the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) tacit cooperation with Hezbollah in fighting Sunni extremists, has angered many of Lebanon’s nearly 1.5 million Sunnis. These conditions, reinforced by a void in Lebanese Sunni politics, allowed lesser-known, local leaders like al-Assir to gain small but devout followings. Al-Assir’s scathing criticism of Hezbollah and the LAF has formed the ideological backbone for Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra-affiliated jihadists and others seeking to infiltrate and threaten Lebanon’s territorial integrity.
Al-Assir had a unique, non-religious upbringing in Sidon. He was born in 1968, as the eldest of five children to a Shiite mother and Sunni father (al-Arabiya, June 25, 2013). His father was a musician, going so far as to appear on the TV singing competition Studio El Fan. Al-Assir noted, “I grew up in an artistic house… There was no room for religion.” However, he affirmed that a “turning point” for him came him when Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1982. At the age of 15, he began “thinking about life and death a lot… [and] wanted to learn about religion” (NOW Lebanon, July 16, 2012). Within the span of a few months, al-Assir became a full-fledged member of Jamaat al-Islamiya (the Islamic Group), the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Four years later, he joined Amal ad-Dawa wa’l Tableegh, which he described as a “non-political group [that] undertakes ‘dawa’ [proselytizing] inside and outside of Lebanon.”
Al-Assir’s sister, Nohad, noted that during the Lebanese civil war, her brother supported Hezbollah’s resistance against Israel (al-Arabiya, June 25, 2013). This view lasted throughout the 1990s, but began to sour when al-Assir noticed Hezbollah’s political influence grew at the expense of the country’s Sunnis. Two particular flashpoints helped form his opinion: 1) the assassination of Sunni Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, which Hezbollah is accused of helping orchestrate, and 2) the aggressive takeover of West Beirut and looting of the Future Movement’s offices in 2008 (NOW Lebanon, July 16, 2012). Hezbollah’s blatant dismantling of the Future Movement—the most powerful Sunni political party in Lebanon—turned the country’s Sunnis into what al-Assir calls the “dispossessed.” Just months before the start of the Syrian revolution, Lebanese Sunnis’ distrust of Hezbollah intensified when the group forced Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s cabinet to collapse in early 2011, further vindicating al-Assir’s anti-Hezbollah outlook.
In early 2012, al-Assir generated a nascent base of support in Sidon, where he began preaching as imam of the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque. That March, he grabbed headlines when he and pop singer Fadel Shaker led an anti-Bashar al-Assad rally at Martyr’s Square in Beirut (Daily Star [Beirut], June 25, 2013). Al-Assir invited all Lebanese, regardless of sect, to join him in demanding an expansion of the state’s writ to curb Hezbollah’s authority (al-Akhbar [Beirut], March 2, 2012). At this point, his rhetoric was purely political and non-violent; however, throughout the year, his language became more aggressive. In November, he declared his intention to organize “resistance brigades” in Sidon to rein in pro-Hezbollah militias (Naharnet, November 17, 2012). In Sidon’s Taamir Ain al-Helwa Palestinian refugee camp—an Islamist hotbed that is home to various Palestinian and jihadist entities—several of al-Assir’s followers were killed in an armed clash with Hezbollah supporters (Naharnet, November 11, 2012). After the incident, al-Assir asserted “We have a blood score to settle with Hezbollah that can only be settled with blood” (Naharnet, November 17, 2012). However, he emphasized that he was only challenging Hezbollah, not all Shiites (al-Arabiya, November 11, 2012). Still, he urged his followers to stay alert and mobilize for future confrontations, saying: “I call on you to take up weapons. But don’t rush or get dragged [into fighting]” (France 24, November 15, 2012).
Al-Assir delivered a fatwa in April of the following year, declaring it incumbent upon all Muslims to defend Sunni Muslims in Syria from al-Assad and Hezbollah aggression (YouTube, April 22, 2013). He also called on his supporters to attack alleged Hezbollah sanctuaries in Sidon and the Abra suburbs. Then, he appeared in a video alongside other armed men patrolling and fighting in Syria that May (YouTube, May 1, 2013).
In June 2013, al-Assir became openly hostile to the Lebanese Armed Forces. This marked a significant shift in his thinking, as prior to the Syrian crisis, the LAF had been popular among Sunni politicians because its existence undermined Hezbollah’s case for maintaining an independent militia. Al-Assir demanded that the government expel Hezbollah forces from Sidon (Al-Monitor, June 24, 2013). When his demands were unmet, al-Assir deployed over 100 of his supporters throughout the city, leading several of his loyalists to open fire on an army checkpoint, killing two LAF soldiers and provoking an intense, two-day firefight (al-Akhbar [Beirut], June 24, 2013). During this ordeal, al-Assir publicly urged all Sunnis to defect from the LAF and declare all military officials infidels (Al-Monitor, June 24, 2013). After the LAF pounded his forces into submission, al-Assir fled into hiding, reportedly in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, while most of his followers were imprisoned (Daily Star [Beirut], August 15). The following February, Lebanese military courts declared they were seeking the death penalty for al-Assir because of his role in the conflict (al-Akhbar [Beirut], February 28, 2014).
While still hiding in March 2014, al-Assir released the video “Message to the ‘Lebanese Army’” in which he called the LAF an “extension of the Iranian project of Wilayat al-Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurists). [1] The Guardianship of the Jurists is the Shiite political and judicial tradition largely applied and epitomized by Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah, and has been utilized by jihadists to represent the existential threat of Iranian influence in the region. Al-Assir ascribes this concept not only to perceptions that the LAF defended Hezbollah during the June 2013 battle in Sidon, but more fundamentally, to the institutional vulnerability of the Lebanese state to foreign influence. In the video, he argues that in the 1980s, the LAF was under the effective control of the Israelis, in the 1990s, the Syrians, and now, the Iranians. The key takeaway from al-Assir’s evolution from a firebrand cleric to a quasi-militant leader is his attitude toward the LAF.
Al-Assir has had a critical impact on Salafist-Jihadist discourse in Lebanon. Criticism of Hezbollah’s alliance with Assad and later, the perceived subjectivity of the Lebanese government and LAF, turned from forbidden into commonplace. The Abra battle—the culmination of back-and-forth sectarian rhetoric between al-Assir and Hezbollah—tarnished the LAF’s image as an impartial, non-sectarian institution. It is no surprise other Lebanon-based jihadist voices, such as the Aisha Media Center, Shaykh Abu Sa’d al-Amili, the Ibn Taymiyyah Media, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and others, have cited al-Assir as an inspiration in their quest for Sunni primacy in Lebanon. He is often referred to by these outlets as a hero and his followers as “mujahideen” who stood up to defend their fellow Sunnis. Shaykh Sirajuddin Zurayqat of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, one of al-Qaeda’s official affiliates, asserts that al-Assir’s “arrest will increase the pressure to the explosion!” [2] While it is uncertain if Zurayqat’s warning will come to fruition, al-Assir continues to symbolize the extent to which Sunni grievances can be transformed into armed mobilization in an “open front” and semi-conventional fashion.
Even though Ahmad al-Assir is a fringe character, his political logic has resonated with mainstream Lebanese Sunnis. His arrest not only means one less extremist on the streets, but also bolsters the credibility of the state and promotes the perception that the government’s security and military forces are independently capable of protecting its citizens. Still, it remains to be seen whether al-Assir’s arrest will galvanize Lebanon’s decentralized Sunni jihadist movement into a more cohesive force as has been threatened by other militants.
Notes
1. The video can be viewed at: https://jihadology.net/2014/03/23/new-video-message-from-shaykh-a%E1%B8%A5mad-al-assir-message-to-the-lebanese-army/.
2. The document can be viewed at: https://justpaste.it/Ahmad_Al-Aseer.
