Calls for calm in Lebanon as Bsharri killings raise fears of sectarian violence

Tensions were running high in the northern Lebanese town of Bsharri on Sunday after a young man was shot dead by a sniper there on Saturday.

Haitham Touk, 36, was shot dead near Qurnat As Sawda, or Black Peak, the highest point in Lebanon and the Levant.

A second man, 50-year-old Malik Touk, was killed a few hours later as soldiers were combing the area in search of the sniper.

Political and religious figures moved quickly to try and prevent any violent spillover from the killings.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the incident and said the perpetrators would be pursued and arrested. He also spoke to Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun as well as security and judicial authorities.

Mikati stressed the “need for everyone to exercise wisdom and not to be drawn into any reactions, especially in this critical situation that we are living through.”

He made the remarks during a call to Strida Geagea, a Bsharri politician and wife of the Lebanese Forces party leader Samir Geagea.

The apparent lack of a motive for the shootings sparked suggestions they might have been intended to put pressure on the Lebanese Forces party, which is opposed to Hezbollah.

There was also concern about attempts to intervene on the side of the people of Dennieh and build relationships with its politicians — who are allies of Hezbollah — to confirm that the strategic Qurnat As Sawda and the surrounding area belong to Dennieh district and not Bsharri district.

Hezbollah sources denied any involvement in the killings.

The party said it had taken precautionary measures to prevent any escalation of the situation and to control any interaction with its supportive environment, which is located close to Bsharri.

Dennieh has a Sunni majority, while Bsharri area has a Maronite majority.

Bsharri is considered a stronghold for the Lebanese Forces party and has two parliamentary deputies because it is the most populous in the district.

A few hours after Haitham Touk was killed, a group of men from Bsharri headed to Qurnat As Sawda to retrieve his remains. But that coincided with an army operation to find the killer and other armed men stationed on the peak. It was at that time that Malik Touk was fatally shot.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri urged Tripoli lawmaker Faisal Karami to “exercise wisdom” in dealing with the incident. He also urged the people of Dennieh not to be swayed by prejudice and rumors, and to wait for the whole story to be revealed.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Darian urged Karami to “contribute to calming the situation.”

Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi said in his Sunday sermon: “We rely on the army to impose security for the benefit of everyone and on the people of Bsharri to exercise self-restraint and leave the chronic dispute in Qurnat As Sawda in the hands of the judiciary.”

Sheikh Ali Al-Khatib, the highest official religious authority in the Shiite community, called on “the wise and prudent to avert the sedition that we warn against.”

He warned about Israel’s “targeting of Lebanon to sabotage it and drag it into the quagmire of sedition and disturbances.”

Bsharri lawmaker William Touk accused “a lawless group that has been encroaching on our land for years with the aim of seizing it and attempting to lure us into an internal fight that we do not want with our people in Dennieh and Bqaa Safrine.”

“Calling for self-restraint does not at all mean tolerance or compromise on the blood of the martyr, but rather means a commitment to our ethical and national values, and the insistence on taking our rights into our own hands in case of failure of the authorities and relevant agencies,” he said.

The army said that Qurnat As Sawda was a military training zone and people had been warned against approaching it. Several people had been arrested and a number of weapons and ammunition had been seized, it added.

Five people from Bsharri and several others from Dennieh were among those arrested, security sources said.

Bsharri Mayor Freddy Kairouz told Arab News that civil peace in Lebanon could not be achieved on the spilled blood of “our town’s youth.”

Qurnat As Sawda is located in an area of northern Lebanon that has not yet been delineated.

Kairouz speculated that the killings might have been the result of “accumulated property disputes … and the failure of the Lebanese security forces and judiciary to resolve these disputes by demarcating the boundaries of the lands, as well as the armed lawlessness in these mountains.”

“All of this contributed to the targeting of a young man who was in an area considered to be part of Bsharri. He was deliberately shot from behind at a distance of 1,000 meters.”

The Bsharri municipality said the town would observe full mourning for the victims on Monday and that their funerals would be held at Our Lady of Bsharri Church.