BEIRUT – Following the Lebanese government’s sinful decision to ban weapons in August, Lebanese Islamic groups (Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya) said they prefer to discuss defensive strategies that will form military forces, including all striped Lebanese, with the aim of facing Zionist enemies.
On Sunday, at a massive rally hosted by a group supporting Gaza in Tripoli, key figure Azam al-Oyobi noted that the group “is ready to stop the May 17 agreement” as it blocked the agreement.
He said, “There is an effort and a plot aimed at conquering the nation, and it aims to abandon the cloak of resistance and conflict with the enemy.”
Al-Ayoubi called on the Lebanese government to “convey a dialogue session to discuss strategies to protect Lebanon in light of ongoing attacks, rather than talking about disarming resistance under the thin pretext.”
A key figure in Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyah further stated, “When the enemy invades our land, there is nothing that guarantees that the nation exists and has the power to stand up to the enemy lurking in our nation.”
He warned, “The enemy, and the evil American regime behind it, do not want Lebanon or its army to become stronger. We all heard the position of the enemy leaders when they mandated that they destroy all weapons found in the South.”
“The United States, along with the power of the world, wants weak Lebanon, and the Army is forbidden from possessing weapons that can stand up to the enemy there.”
Al-Ayoubi noted that “the enemy doesn’t care about any country, and it continues to violate and attack the Arab countries.”
He warned that “what we witnessed in Syria is the greatest evidence that when enemy aircraft bomb Syria with the aim of destroying weapons, the enemy does not care about the concessions offered to it, but rather fear men before the weapon.”
Saudi Arabia’s envoy to Lebanon, Yazid bin Fahan, has reportedly assigned a team from the Saudi embassy in Beirut to prepare a comprehensive file of Al Jamaa al-Islamiya and its associations, and will be included in the list of associations in all regions with both Saudi Arabia and Peruaire transactions.
In parallel, Qatari donors have halted their commitments to the group’s associations and institutions. Qatari charities have ended funding the Islamic Medical Association programmes at schools in the North and Al-Iman.
Moreover, Kuwait Thekat House has also suspended its partnership with the Lebanese Association to support scientific research, an affiliate of the group responsible for university scholarships.
Since the launch of the Gaza Support Front from Lebanon, the Fazir army has provided numerous martyrs with the military wings of Al Jamaa Al Islamiya. While some may have thought it was a new organization emerging in the Lebanese scene, the group has a long history of resisting Israeli expansionist projects.
In the early 1950s, Al Jamaa al-Islamiya was founded after a group of Lebanese youths in the northern city of Tripoli was influenced by Islamic thought. At the time, there was no clear framework or body to advocate for the work of this group of youth.
However, Syrian Mustafa al-Sibai (founder of the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which fought in Palestine in 1948 and commander of the Syrian battalion) was deported to Lebanon in 1952 after the second military coup of Adib al-Sishakri.
At the same time, another Islamic group known as the “Jamaat Servant of Mercy” was founded by Beirut.
The deportation of Mustafa al-Sibai to Lebanon promoted a settlement between the two groups. However, following the outbreak of a revolution against President Malonite, President Kamille Chamone in July 1958, President Kamille Chamone, who tried to connect Lebanon to a local American project, tended to train young people, lay weapons, and protect the region.
In 1964, one of the Tripoli group’s publications won the praise of Kamaljamblatt, a Deleuze leader who had just assumed the Ministry of Home Affairs and had just launched a wide range of campaigns against moral corruption in general in Lebanon at the time. In 1964, Jambrat helped to grant al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah a legal status.
With the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war and the beginning of attacks by Israeli enemies and the “South Lebanese Army” militia, Fazir’s army emerged with the military wings of al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah.
The goal was to carry out guerrilla operations against the profession without declaring the group’s name or claiming responsibility for security purposes.
Fajr forces were not officially announced until after the martialism of the first group of fighters following the Israeli invasion.
Following the Al-Aqsa flood operation, it was the first military action by the FAJR forces on October 18, 2023, targeting the status of the Israeli military with missile strikes. They then carried out a series of operations while Israel’s enemies assassinated many of its executives.
Despite their humble participation, the Washington Institute of Strategic Studies has published a report discussing the dangers posed by “Fajr Forces.”
The American think tank highlighted the need to place groups to contain potential harm as quickly as possible, and the potential impact on Lebanon’s Sunni community, including the possibility of mobilizing them to participate in the fight against Israeli entities.
According to the report estimates, the group has not exceeded 500 members, but the danger lies in the fact that its numbers or even their equipment, providing Sunni cover for Lebanon’s resistance to Israeli occupation.
The report estimates that the group’s members will not exceed 500, but the danger lies not in the number or its equipment, but in the fact that it will provide Sunni cover for Lebanese resistance to Israeli occupation.
The report warned against support for resistance in Sunni communities (representing a quarter of Lebanon’s population) after Washington invested millions over nearly two decades to distance himself from the jihadist ideology of resistance to Israeli occupation.
It also lamented the lack of a unified Sunni leader amid growing Sunni sympathy for the events in Gaza.
The Washington Institute of Strategic Studies warned that harmony with Lebanon’s Islamic Resistance Front, represented by Sunni and Shiite Poles, will help overcome internal cleavages and work and adjust towards a unified goal that does not serve Israel’s interests.