Movements Within Movements

By William R. Doerner

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment feeling itself a nation.

-- Lebanese Poet

Kahlil Gibran

The author of The Prophet could not have provided a more fitting epithet for his own tortured homeland. In Lebanon, moreover, even the fragments have - fragments. The country is split not just between Christians and Muslims. The Christian community is composed of both Maronites and Greek Orthodox; the Muslim one is made up of Sunnis, Shi'ites and Druze. In the chaotic redistribution of power now taking place, the most serious challenge has come from Lebanon's Shi'ites, who constitute some 40% of the population but have long been relegated to second-class citizenship. In the process of winning an enhanced status, however, the Shi'ites have become a dangerously radicalized and fractious lot. The outcome of the internecine disputes within this branch of Islam could have a profound effect on the larger struggle for political control in Lebanon and on the outcome of the current hostage crisis.

Shi'ite fortunes began to change in the 1960s, following the arrival in the coastal city of Tyre of Moussa Sadr, a highly educated Shi'ite cleric from the holy city of Qom in Iran. A charismatic preacher and shrewd organizer, Moussa Sadr formed a devoted following and in 1969 founded the Higher Shi'ite Council to represent Shi'ite interests to the Beirut government. The council worked for improved schools and hospitals in Shi'ite communities and distributed some welfare funds.

In 1975, by then adorned with the messianic title of Imam, Moussa Sadr established and funded a Shi'ite militia named Amal, the Arabic word for "hope." Celebrating the deeds of Shi'ite warriors of the past, the Imam declared, "Arms were the adornment of men." Moussa Sadr then vanished in a manner guaranteed to immortalize him to his followers. On a visit to Libya in 1978, he simply disappeared. Many Shi'ites still believe that he remains the captive of Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Lebanese Shi'ites soon gained another source of inspiration: the Iranian revolution led by the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Moussa Sadr had supported Khomeini during the Ayatullah's long exile in Iraq and later in France. Fouad Ajami, director of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, describes the galvanizing effect of the Iranian upheaval in the spring issue of Foreign Affairs. "For the moderate Shia mainstream, this was a chance for the country's largest group to lay claim to its legitimate share of power," he says. "For more marginal and intemperate men, there was something to the recent events resembling a millennial fulfillment."

Amal became not only one of Lebanon's most potent military forces but also a major political influence. Both characteristics came into prominent display following Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Under the leadership of Nabih Berri, Amal has forged an on-again-off-again alliance with the Druze forces of Walid Jumblatt and sometimes serves as the agent of Syria, a major force in the Lebanese conflict. In February 1984, Berri persuaded Shi'ite members of the Lebanese Army to defect to Amal, which proceeded to take control of West Beirut.

But while he was gaining power in the capital, Berri was also acquiring radical challenges from within his own camp. His decision to join the government of President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite, infuriated the growing number of Khomeini- inspired zealots who want to turn Lebanon into an Islamic revolutionary state like Iran. One such group, called Islamic Amal, broke away in 1982 and set up headquarters in the eastern town of Baalbek under the leadership of Hussein Musawi, a former schoolteacher and pro-Iranian fanatic. Soon thereafter Iran sent hundreds of Revolutionary Guards into the Bekaa Valley to train an Islamic Amal militia and help Musawi consolidate his power.

A second pro-Iranian group, led by Shi'ite clerics and known as Hizballah (Party of God), sprang up around the same time. Its most magnetic leader, though he disclaims sole authority, is Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. Richard Helms, a former CIA director and Ambassador to Iran, describes Fadlallah as "Khomeini's spiritual man" in Lebanon. Fadlallah is widely believed to have played at least some role in the rash of bloody anti-Western car bombings, including the 1983 attacks on the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine barracks that claimed a total of 258 American lives. In a recent interview published by the bimonthly Middle East Insight, Fadlallah denied ordering these assaults but freely admitted that "suicide attacks are another form of struggle."

Some believe that the current hijacking was plotted by a faction in Amal calling itself the Sadr Brigade, purportedly composed of friends and relatives of the Shi'ite detainees in Israel. There are many such informal alliances within Lebanon's Shi'ite community, most of them extremist and many of them revolving around a single electrifying personality. "We're not talking about neat organizations," says Helms. "These are people who are inclined to pick a title that suits them after they act." Indeed, the most famous such group, Islamic Jihad (Holy War), apparently exists solely as a disembodied and anonymous telephone identification. It has no known central leadership or defined membership; it is essentially a label or tag used by various Shi'ite terrorists to claim responsibility for many of the bombings, kidnapings and acts of random violence over the past two years.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Cairo and Johanna McGeary/ Washington