Abandoned and Ungoverned: Lebanon’s Palestinian and Syrian Populations and the Emerging Radicalization Landscape

Inside Lebanon, the conditions for the next extremist uprising are quietly taking root.In the summer of 2007, the Lebanese Armed Forces fought Fatah al-Islam for three months inside Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Fatah al-Islam was a Salafi-jihadist group that exploited the camp’s power vacuum to establish a strong recruitment base, drawing recruits from Palestinian, Syrian, and broader Arab networks. Once the dust settled, more than 400 people were dead, and the 30,000 residents of Nahr-Bared were displaced for a second time. The very same conditions that led to the Nahr al-Bared clash are reassembling now, The post Abandoned and Ungoverned: Lebanon’s Palestinian and Syrian Populations and the Emerging Radicalization Landscape appeared first on War on the Rocks.