May 8, 2008 11:51

The Night Watch

Photo by Pasqual Gorriz

Abu Ziad runs an unusually busy -- and unusually well-armed -- aluminum hardware store. In the back office behind the stockroom and workshop, he receives a constant stream of walkie-talkie carrying visitors wearing combat boots and utility vests with bulges at the hip. They aren't here to order screen doors and window frames. Abu Ziad is the security chief for Tariq Jdeideh, one of the largest Sunni neighborhood in West Beirut, and which is surrounded by Shia Muslim areas.

Tariq Jdeideh is Lebanon's new sectarian frontline, and almost every night there is some kind of clash or incident between Abu Ziad's men and their opposite numbers, mostly street youth loosely affiliated with Shia parties such as Amal. Earlier this week, while visiting Abu Ziad, word came in of one incident. An Amal member had allegedly attacked a Tariq Jdeideh resident, and Abu Ziad's men responded by burning the guy's motor-scooter. Not long afterwards, an anonymous caller threatened Abu Ziad: "Don't leave the neighborhood, or we we'll get you and you children."

Abu Ziad didn't seem particularly worried, though he called his eldest son and told him to return home immediately by avoiding alleys and driving only on busy highways. "He's on high security alert all the time, anyway," said Abu Ziad. "Everyone is filling their homes with guns now. War is knocking at the door."

Abu Ziad has some 10,000 men -- all of them volunteers or paid a modest stipend -- under his command, 500 who would be willing to die to protect their homes and families, he said. Closed circuit cameras monitor the entrances to the neighborhood, backed by rooftop spotters who keep track of anyone trying to set up car bombs or otherwise spy. "If someone is pretending to sell vegetables but is not really selling vegetables, we kick him out. No one can come here and put up their flags and posters."

"We used to believe in Lebanon, and we used to believe in the government and the army," said Abu Ziad, between taking security phone calls and doing very little metal business. "But now they want the Sunni sect to vanish. They want us out of our homes, and to put someone else in our homes. So were are taking control of the streets to get our privacy by force."

Night falls on Tariq Jdeideh, but the street lights don't come on. The neighborhood watch, some 20 young men on each street, use the cover of darkness to set up checkpoints, asking each driver to turn off their headlights and give a password, while the occasional housewife in headscarf and nightgown looks down from the balconies at the commotion below. A few men wearing black ski masks and carrying cheap new Chinese-made Kalashnikov assault riffles show up. They say they have military training -- the result of national service -- but are clearly eager amateurs. "We have jobs and careers," said one. "You could meet me on the street tomorrow and not know the difference."

In fact, there doesn't seem to be much difference at all between Tariq Jdeideh and any other neighborhood in West Beirut, certainly not the Shia one just a stone's throw away on the other side of a well-lit highway. Young men who look nearly identical to the young men here patrol streets that look identical to these and return home at dawn to apartment buildings just like these. A call comes over the radio. Someone suspicious is on the highway. He is wearing a striped t-shirt. There is much excitement and motor-scootering.

The dark dream of Tariq Jdeideh ends abruptly with just a five minute drive. Downtown Beirut is in the midst of its after-hours ritual of dining and clubbing. But which is the dangerous fantasy: the street patrols that go on night after night, or the procession of luxury cars and women in short skirts?

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut