Shahhal from Tariq al-Jadideh: We'll Fight Those Who Want to Assault Innocents

Salafist cleric Dai al-Islam al-Shahhal on Monday threatened to “fight” anyone who attacks “innocents”, rejecting what he called “the rule of the minority over the majority of the Sunni sect.”

“The limping security we have been observing is only being enforced in our areas, while a lot of criminals and murderers are on the loose in other areas,” Shahhal said at a sit-in organized by the Committee of Muslim Scholars in Tariq al-Jadideh in protest at the attack on Muslim clerics Mazen Hariri and Ahmed Fakhran.

“We will fight those who want to assault innocents and women,” he warned.

The hardline cleric accused the rival camp of “seeking to emulate the immoral Syrian regime, as the security and military institutions are being used in favor of one camp against another and against the scholars and the residents of Beirut, Tripoli, Akkar and Arsal."

"They are repeating the slogans of resistance and defiance in order to maintain their arsenals of weapons and impose their will on the rest of society," Shahhal charged.

He noted that “the Syrian regime is exporting the repercussions of its hysteria to Lebanon,” wondering whether there is a “real state” in Lebanon.

“The Sunni community is not a scapegoat and it will remain honorable; it will not aggress against others and it will reject tyranny and aggression,” Shahhal added.

Hariri and Fakhran were beaten up on Sunday while passing through the Beirut area of Khandaq al-Ghamiq. The army managed to arrest 10 suspects involved in the attack and in a similar incident that happened in the Beirut suburb of Shiyyah where a cleric was also assaulted.

Tensions soared in the wake of the two attacks as angry protesters blocked roads in several regions across Lebanon.