The Gangs of Beirut

Sunni gangs like Mazen's started forming in 2006. Thought to number hundreds or thousands, they've received help, including money, informal training and coordination, from the Future Movement as well as from Saudis and other Gulf Arabs. Many of the young toughs have adopted the red flag of al-Mourabitoun, an armed Sunni faction that was active during the civil war. These red pennants, as well as posters of the Hariris and even Saddam Hussein, now highlight the frontier between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods. On the other side fly Hizbullah flags (yellow with a green Kalashnikov) and green Amal banners. "They are drawing the lines," says one military official not authorized to talk to the press.

The Shiite militias have also been busy training supporters, recruiting youngsters who wouldn't make it into the militias proper (because they're not competent or religious enough) and forming them into street-fighting units. They've even started training small groups of Christian allies.

Most worrisome is what appears to be the increasing radicalization of the Sunni gangs. There are reports of young members being trained by insurgents from Iraq, and the military official said that more and more toughs subscribe to ultraconservative Salafi doctrine that holds that Shiites are apostate Muslims. "These groups are forming around ideology similar to Al Qaeda," says the official.

Experts predict that the lack of heavy weapons will probably prevent a near-term eruption of full-bore civil war. But the low-intensity clashes seem set to increase since both sides see instability as helping their cause. All the leaders "seem to find more power on [their] own than as part of a functioning government," says Habib Zoghbi of the National Sovereignty Movement. Absent an external war—say, another conflict with Israel—he expects the internal fighting to worsen, bringing still more violence to this most battered of cities.

© 2008