Islamic State terrorist group is capitalizing on Lebanon’s economic collapse

Lebanon’s deepening economic crisis and long political stagnation have recently persuaded dozens of the country’s Sunnis that their most hopeful future involves joining the Islamic State.

Over the last several months, young and unemployed Sunni men from the poorest parts of the country have been lured with the promise of handsome salaries by Islamic State handlers to join the group and multiply its forces.

Some of the men who have fled Lebanon for Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State had previously served time in Lebanese prisons or were suspected of having links with or sympathy for extremist outfits.

Most, however, simply came from areas of Lebanon riven with poverty and sectarian rivalry between Shiites and Sunnis.

At the peak of Syria’s civil war, hundreds of men from the Sunni-dominated Lebanese areas of Tripoli, Akkar, and Arsal joined Syrian rebels, including Islamist jihadi groups, affiliated with al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

They carried out many lethal attacks inside the country, including using car bombs. Sometimes, they carried their violence back home.

In 2015, the Islamic State’s suicide bombers killed more than 40 people and injured more than 200 in an attack in Burj al-Barajneh, a Shiite-dominated suburb of Beirut.

Source: Foreign Policy