I sure hope the Lebanese will back the army... and at some point Hezbollah needs to help. Radical threat unites Lebanese and strange allies behind army BEIRUT Beating back an incursion by Islamists from Syria, Lebanons poorly armed military has paid a high price 36 of its soldiers have been killed or captured. But it has gained in one important respect by winning support from Lebanons fractious politicians. At odds about so much, including just who their enemies are, leaders from across Lebanons sectarian divide have shown rare unity by agreeing they have a common foe in the Islamic State the radical Islamist group that is dismembering Iraq and Syria. The concern among the Lebanese appears to be shared by their rival foreign patrons, determined to prevent a radical Sunni caliphate stretching from the Tigris to the Mediterranean. With the Lebanese army part of a regional battle against the Sunni radicals, statements of support have come from an unlikely array of countries including Syria and Saudi Arabia, the United States and Iran. As Syria and Iraq have fragmented with the stunning advance of Islamic State fighters an offshoot of Al-Qaeda protecting Lebanon from renewed instability is a concern shared by all. The militants incursion into the border town of Arsal on Aug. 2 heightened fears they could extend their battleground into Lebanon, already destabilized by the Syrian civil war that has inflamed sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites. The militants pulled out of the town on Wednesday, after sustaining dozens of fatalities, according to Lebanese security officials. They took 19 soldiers with them as hostages. Lebanons most significant players have rallied behind the army. They include former Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri, the most influential Sunni figure, and Hezbollah, the heavily armed, Iranian-backed Shiite group that has been fighting alongside Assads forces in Syria. Hariri, bitterly at odds with Hezbollah for years, returned to Lebanon on Friday for the first time in three years. There are, of course, still many divisions in Lebanon. But no one has a choice other than to back the army, said Nabil Boumonsef, a columnist at the Lebanese daily An-Nahar. We know what it means if the army breaks up and what will happen in the whole country. We will become part of a picture stretching from Mosul to Arsal, he said, referring to the Iraqi city on the Tigris River seized by the Islamic State in June. The Lebanese armys role is twofold, confronting the new militant threat while also helping to shore up national unity at a time of regional upheaval and sectarian strife. Though it remains hamstrung by outdated weapons its oldest tanks date to the 1950s and ammunition shortages, the army has at least obtained the political support needed to act at all. Agree on what you want to do and I am ready. We just need political cover, Gen. Jean Kahwaji, the armys Maronite Christian commander, told ministers at a Cabinet meeting during the crisis, according to a source who attended. Wary of sectarian tensions exacerbated by its role fighting just over the border in Syria, Hezbollah said it stayed out of the battle for Arsal, a Sunni town that has already been a flashpoint for tensions unleashed by the Syria war. Though it has thousands of hardened fighters and its arsenal is more powerful than the armys, including state-level rocket systems, Hezbollah said the battle was the militarys to fight. The Lebanese are all too aware of the risks of sectarianism spreading into the army. Lebanons slide into the 1975-90 civil war was accelerated by the disintegration of the army along sectarian lines. The Arsal operation risked sucking the army, drawn from Lebanons patchwork of religious communities, into a sectarian fire storm. With Hezbollah fighting the same militants on the other side of the border, a handful of Sunni critics said the army appeared to be taking sides with the Shiite group. As the fighting escalated, one Sunni MP a hawkish member of Hariris party ratcheted up the sectarian rhetoric by describing events in Arsal as part of an Iranian-Syrian plot to subdue the Sunnis. The lawmaker, Mohamed Kabara, warned of any decision that turns our inclusive, national army ... into something resembling Malikis army. He was referring to the Iraqi military which critics say has become a sectarian weapon in the hands of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, a Shiite. Sectarian turbulence has spread from Arsal to other Sunni areas of Lebanon as a result of the battle. Soldiers have come under fire in the northern city of Tripoli. On Wednesday, a bomb targeting an army patrol killed one person in the same city. But influential voices such as Sunni cleric Sheikh Dai Al-Islam Al-Shahaal have helped to contain the fallout. He issued a fatwa, or religious edict, forbidding fighting with the army. Reuters http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20140811214315