In Lebanon, villagers on the border watch Syria’s revolution with unease : NPR

Rafaat Nasrallah smokes a cigarette in his village on the Syria-Lebanon border. “We are at the border,” he says, “our roads lead to Syria, because for us Syria is my country as well as Lebanon.”

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YOUNINE, Lebanon, near the border with Syria — Over the snowcapped mountains along the Lebanon-Syria border, the wind carries a sharp chill, blowing cigarette smoke from Rafaat Nasrallah’s hand as he gestures toward the horizon.

“We are at the border,” he says, “our roads lead to Syria, because for us Syria is my country as well as Lebanon.”

Nasrallah’s Christian village sits between two wars. One, in Lebanon, where a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel is barely taking hold. Another, in Syria, where rebel Islamist insurgents have swept across the country, defeated government forces and toppled the dictatorial regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Nasrallah, a Lebanese Christian, had feared that the Syrian rebel advances would flood Lebanon with more refugees, weapons and terrorists. But today, his fears have not been realized.

Lebanon already hosts the highest number of refugees per capita worldwide, according to the United Nations, with government estimates indicating approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees residing in the country since 2012. The influx has put a strain on Lebanon’s resources and infrastructure.

But now many Syrians are heading home, jubilant. They carry mattresses on the roofs of their cars, sing chants of freedom and wave the revolutionary flag, some improvised from scraps of cardboard. Their return to Syria, after years of displacement, injects an unexpected moment of hope after years of violence.

“The situation is not scary,” Nasrallah says. “There is no bloodshed or executions. If it stays like this, contained in Syria, we are not concerned. But, if the groups want to come to Lebanon, we will be prepared.”

Damaged cars in the Lebanese village of Younine on the Syrian border following an Israeli airstrike, on Dec. 4.

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A revolution in Syria is almost complete after more than a decade of civil war. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — a jihadist group once linked to al-Qaida — has stormed across the country in recent days, capturing Idlib, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus in less than two weeks.

The group’s rapid advance threatens to displace thousands of Syrians loyal to the ousted regime and sever a supply chain from Iran to Syria, where Tehran supported Assad’s regime, and to Lebanon, where the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah is based. The surprise HTS offensive met little resistance from the Syrian military, which melted away from many regime-held areas in the face of the spectacular rebel juggernaut.

For Nasrallah, the border beyond his village of Ras Baalbek is more than a line on a map. It’s a place of memory and pain. Looking toward Syria, he recalls crossing the hills as a boy to attend Boy Scouts there.

The Lebanese village of Younine on the Syrian border.
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But after the Syrian war erupted in 2011, it began threatening Lebanese like him. Sunni Muslim rebels infiltrated Lebanon, clashing with Lebanese soldiers and Hezbollah, abducting locals and setting off suicide bombs. To protect his community, his predominantly Christian village forged an alliance with Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim paramilitary force.

“I’d make a deal with the devil if it meant protecting my village,” he says. “But Hezbollah is not the devil. They’re our neighbors, the kids we grew up going to school with.”

That alliance came at a cost. The road leading to his village is lined with craters from Israeli strikes. Hezbollah uses this border to ferry weapons from Iran, across Syria and into Lebanon. Those supply lines are what Israel has been targeting.

The scars of more than a year of war between Israel and Hezbollah can be seen throughout Lebanon.

Fatima Salah’s 10 cousins were killed following an Israeli airstrike in her village in Lebanon near the border with Syria.

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In the nearby village of Younine, Fatima Salah picks through the rubble of what was once her family home while reciting a verse from the Quran. Just last month, an Israeli airstrike reduced the house to a tangle of bricks, mangled metal and broken children’s toys.

Israel says its operation in Lebanon targets Hezbollah fighters and military infrastructure.

Ten of Salah’s cousins were killed in the attack, she says. The youngest, Haider, was only 1 and a half years old.

“It’s just twisted metal,” she says, picking up a piece of shrapnel from the rubble.

Yet, as she mourns, Salah now sees Syrians stream across the border returning to the homes, while other Syrians are coming into Lebanon.

On Dec. 4, Fatima Salah shows a picture on her phone of her cousins who were killed.

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“Those who are against the Assad government are returning to Syria, but others are getting displaced. The [Assad] supporters are now coming to Lebanon and we are receiving some of them in our village,” she says.

For Salah, Syria and Israel are two fronts in a wider war. On the same day that Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire and a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, Syrian rebels started making advances against Assad’s forces on the other side of this border.

The timing of the insurgent assault inside Syria has fueled speculation in Lebanon — that Israel and the U.S. were behind the rebel advances, seeking to weaken Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah, who Salah sees as her protector. The U.S. has designated HTS as a terrorist organization and maintains a policy of not supporting the group. A former Israeli military commander did confirm that his country armed some anti-Assad rebel factions.

“The day it stopped over here, it started over there. It’s not a coincidence. It’s the same war,” Salah says. Speaking of the Sunni groups such as HTS, she says: “They are next to us, they are on our borders … Aleppo, Hama, Damascus, and then us.”

What is left of Fatima Salah’s family home following an Israeli airstrike, seen on Dec. 4.

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Her fear is real. A decade ago, the same rebels who recently took over cities in Syria crossed into Lebanon just behind her house. They were part of Jabhat al-Nusra, HTS’ predecessor.

The insurgents unleashed a reign of terror in some areas, sending a message to Hezbollah, whose fighters were battling alongside Assad’s forces in Syria. These incursions drew Lebanon deeper into the Syrian conflict, forcing the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah to respond with military operations to reclaim these areas.

For people like Ali Zgheib, the consequences of this violence are personal. An international law student, Zgheib balances his academic pursuits with his family’s tradition of shepherding. Like his father and grandfather before him, he herds sheep along the Lebanon-Syria border — a terrain that has become a fault line in a wider regional war.

Ali Zgheib on his family farm near the Syrian border.

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“My mom is Syrian,” he says, from the city of Homs, which is now under the control of rebel forces.

“We’re terrified,” Zgheib admits. His fears come from two directions: the ongoing Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, which have persisted despite a ceasefire, and the Sunni rebels now in control in much of Syria, where Zgheib crossed into regularly to sell his sheep in local markets.

“If these two wars come together,” he says, his voice heavy with unease, “it’ll happen right here. And there will be no ceasefire anymore.”