By Mohamad El Kari
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel, Hezbollah and other armed groups in Lebanon have exchanged almost 5,000 attacks across the border. Lebanon is being pulled into a war it cannot afford. But the country’s weak state has little power against the militias that operate within its territory.
A string of overlapping crises over the past decade, coupled with political paralysis and an economic depression that has crippled much of the state and fuelled poverty, has brought Lebanon to the verge of collapse. In Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut, the absence of state power has prompted some communities to take security matters into their own hands.
In the Christian neighbourhood of Achrafieh in eastern Beirut, one neighbourhood watch initiative formed to reassure residents worried about crime has led to the formation of a private militia named Jnoud al-Rab (Soldiers of God). Soldiers of God is a far-right group made up primarily of young working-class men who see themselves as “guardian angels”, patrolling the streets at night to keep the community safe.
Beirut is already witnessing a rise in self-securitisation in places under the influence and control of Hezbollah. The rise of Soldiers of God has raised fears that Achrafieh will join this trend, evoking parallels with the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) when the state collapsed, militants controlled the streets, and Beirut was ideologically divided into the Christian east and Muslim west.
When Soldiers of God goes out on patrol, it claims to do so in defence of Lebanon’s Christian lands against the “Islamist peril”, as well as “criminals” and “outsiders”.
In Lebanon, these “others” often refer to Syrian refugees. Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees per capita and per square kilometre in the world. To the Soldiers of God, the “other” is any non-Christian, but particularly supporters of Hezbollah and its Shia Muslim political partner the Amal Movement. Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker and major figure in the country’s political establishment, Nabih Berri, has led the Amal Movement since 1980.
Although Lebanon’s civil war officially ended in 1990, sectarian and political divides remain. In October 2021, members of the Lebanese Forces party clashed with Hezbollah and Amal supporters in Beirut, resulting in the deaths of at least six people. The Lebanese Forces, which was established in 1976 as the country descended into civil war, is an anti-Hezbollah Christian political party and has the largest bloc in Lebanon’s 128-member parliament.
Soldiers of God had played a partial role in stoking up sectarian fears and prejudices beforehand. Investigations by army intelligence showed that members of the group wrote religious slogans and drew crosses in a number of Beirut’s Christian neighbourhoods the night before the fighting broke out.
The growing polarisation in Lebanon has much to do with Hezbollah’s “offensive” war with Israel. According to Soldiers of God, it’s not just the welfare of Lebanon’s Christian neighbourhoods that Hezbollah is putting at stake by opening a front with Israel, it’s the welfare of the entire country.
In January 2024, Soldiers of God took over flight screens at Beirut’s Rafic Al-Hariri Airport to assert its position as the defender of Lebanon. It displayed a message warning Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, against entering into a war with Israel. The message said:
In the name of God and the people. Rafic Al-Hariri airport doesn’t belong to Iran or Hezbollah. Hassan Nasrallah, you won’t find support if you curse Lebanon with a war you can’t handle. We will not fight on behalf of anyone. You took away our port now you will take away the airport because of your weapon transfer. Let the airport be free of you.
Since then, the divide between Lebanon’s Christian and Shia communities has grown even further, culminating in the killing of Pascal Suleiman, a senior figure in the Lebanese Forces party, on April 7.
Enforcing division
The rise of Soldiers of God is reminiscent of darker times in Lebanon’s history, when militias enforced sectarian, territorial divisions.
In December 2022, young men on motorcycles carrying Moroccan flags were beaten in the Achrafieh area by members of Soldiers of God. The men were celebrating the Moroccan national football team’s historic qualification for the Fifa World Cup semi-finals in Qatar. They were mistaken for members of Hezbollah and Amal as they travelled from west Beirut, a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood.
The group also employs violence against those it claims are threatening traditional Lebanese values and customs. A few months earlier, in June 2022, the group vandalised a billboard in Achrafieh that had been decorated with flowers and a rainbow flag to celebrate Pride month.
Later that day, Soldiers of God posted a video online accusing the LGBTQ+ community of promoting satanism and posing a danger to their children. And in August 2023, members of the group also attacked a LGBTQ+ friendly bar in Beirut, disrupting a drag show and trapping people inside the bar while chanting homophobic slurs.
There is a real concern of increasing violence, even more so because Soldiers of God does not stand on its own. The group has a reported annual budget of £260,000 and is closely tied to, and financed by, former warlords and militias who participated in the Lebanese civil war.
Soldiers of God is playing on divisions in Lebanese society to promote its cause. What the future holds for Lebanon is uncertain, but the declining presence and capacity of the state has paved the way for sectarian conflict to return as armed groups take security matters into their own hands.
Mohamad El Kari is a doctoral candidate in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London.
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Deborah Coffey says
“Buddha was not a Buddhist, Jesus was not a Christian, Muhammad was not a Muslim, they were teachers who taught love, love was their religion” is a quote attributed to an anonymous author. Humans don’t seem to learn from the world’s greatest teachers.
Pogo says
@Thank you Mohamad El Kari (FlaglerLive, and Deborah Coffey too)
“…In Lebanon, these “others” often refer to Syrian refugees. Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees per capita and per square kilometre in the world…”
More broadly, Putin’s bloody hands are all over the creation of the diaspora of Syrians to Jordan too, and the countries of Europe, where nativists have reacted by turning to hard right criminals to save them — like their MAGA cousins here. I wonder, how many of the tragic refugees, victims of barrel bombs to smart bombs, delivered by Putin’s airframes, have keys to rubble in their pockets too.
God, do you collect photos of drowned babies on beaches?
Deirdre says
It seems like everyone in the Middle East is fighting in the name of God. Wouldn’t it be great if God could have a meeting with all sides to work out their problems, before everybody is dead?
As that the Muslim community in Gaza is being annihilated through this genocide, I hope no one else is dragged into this Israeli war against the Palestinian people. Love is the answer, but like would be good too. At least tolerant!
If there’s one thing this teaches me, it’s that many very religious people use their specific idea of God as an excuse for evil deeds.
I just hope American soldiers will be able to stay out of this. Clearly American politicians have taken their side, it’s the one that gives them the most money.
ASF says
I am afraid that, if Israel is eradicated, the US will most certainly be pulled further into quagmires in the Middle East.
With Israel gone, there will no longer be any regional democratic entity to fight for the security interests of global Democracy. That would leave countries like the United States to have to do that sort blood and guts fighting–much of which is done now by the Israelis.
I would say to Anti-Zionists who think the world would be so much calmer and more peaceful with Israel gone–Be careful what you wish for.
Pierre Tristam says
First off, Israel isn’t going anywhere. You can read that sentence a good many ways of course. But to suggest that it would be eradicated is absurd. The only people capable of eradicating Israel are the Israelis themselves. They’re doing an excellent job of it of course—they’re masters of eradication—but they’ve a way to go, since broken, undemocratic nations have an easier time sustaining themselves on the pains they exact from those who make it possible. Which brings me to my point: even more absurd, if not hilariously obscene, is the suggestion that Israel is a) fighting in the remotest way for “the security interests of global Democracy” (Israel is, with Russia and the United States, a medalist in disruption and demolition) and b) that it’s been doing so with “blood and guts,” though it’s certainly spilling that of a few tens of thousands of others’ blood and guts, assuming the commenter thinks those Arabs bleed as anyone else does (a doubtful assumption, given her dehumanized view of Palestinians). I’d thank her for the laugh the comment elicited. Alas, none of this is funny, given the blindness and cynicism in evidence here.