BEIRUT (AP)
-- Gunmen burst into the first floor apartment of a pro-government
Syrian journalist Wednesday, killing him in a hail of nearly 30 bullets
in a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon.
The
pre-dawn assassination of Mohammed Darrar Jammo is the latest in a
series of brazen attacks that have shown the growing vulnerability of
the Shiite militant group, which has found itself increasingly on the
defensive at home over its decision to back President Bashar Assad in
the civil war raging next door.
Violence
linked to Syria's war is increasingly washing across Lebanon,
threatening to unleash large-scale fighting in a deeply fragmented
country that is being constantly tested with ever deepening polarization
over the conflict in Syria.
In recent months,
violence has become more recurrent and geographically widespread,
extending to predominantly Shiite neighborhoods that had been relatively
immune from attacks plaguing other, mostly border areas.
On
Tuesday, a roadside bomb struck a Hezbollah convoy near the Syrian
border, wounding two, and last week a car bombing in south Beirut
wounded 53 people in the heart of the militant group's bastion of
support. Rockets have recently hit the Hezbollah stronghold south of the
Lebanese capital.
The attacks come as no
surprise. Although there have been no credible responsibility claims,
Syria-based extremist Sunni groups have interpreted Hezbollah's moves in
Syria as a declaration of war against their sect and have threatened to
retaliate inside Hezbollah-controlled areas in Lebanon.
"It
is still the beginning of a probably tough road ahead" for Hezbollah,
said Kamel Wazne, founder and director of the Center for American
Strategic Studies in Beirut. Such attacks, however, will not change the
group's ideology or direction, but "will actually strengthen their
resolve to continue what they started," he said.
Jammo,
a 44-year-old journalist and political commentator, was one of Assad's
and Hezbollah's most vociferous defenders. In frequent appearances on
television talk shows, he would staunchly support the Syrian regime's
strong-armed response to the uprising and in at least one case shouted
down opposition figures, calling them "traitors."
His
hard-line stance earned him enemies among Syria's opposition, and some
in the anti-Assad camp referred to Jammo as "shabih," a term used for
pro-government gunmen who have been blamed for some of the worst mass
killings of the civil war.
On Wednesday, he
was gunned down with automatic rifles shot at close range in his
apartment in the coastal town of Sarafand, a stronghold of Hezbollah,
where he lived with his Lebanese wife. The perpetrators got away.
Lebanon's
state news agency published a photo Wednesday of a shirtless Jammo
lying on a blue sheet soaked with blood, his chest riddled with bullet
wounds. Bullet holes were clearly visible in the walls inside the house.
Hezbollah
condemned the attack, saying it showed the "bankruptcy" of Sunni
extremist groups fighting in Syria. In a statement, it said that the
crime should serve as an "alarm bell" for Lebanese authorities "to find
the most appropriate way to confront these terrorist groups before it is
too late."
Assassinations of politicians,
army officers and journalists who support Assad's regime are common in
Syria, but the killing of a well-known Syrian in Lebanon is rare.
Syria's
conflict has cut deep fissures through Lebanon and exposed the
country's split loyalties. Many Lebanese Sunnis support the
overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad, while Shiites generally
back Hezbollah and the Syrian regime.
Clashes
between pro- and anti-Assad groups in Lebanon have left scores of people
dead in recent months, and the violence has escalated as Hezbollah's
role fighting alongside the Syrian regime has become public. The group
was instrumental in helping secure a regime victory in the strategic
town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon last month.
Naufal
Daou, a member of the anti-Hezbollah political coalition in Lebanon,
said that by defying the will of the Lebanese people, Hezbollah finds
itself facing a real dilemma "inflicted on itself by its stubbornness
... and insistence to attach Lebanon's fate to that of rogue states and
dying political regimes."
The slide in Lebanon
toward violence is taking place amid a dangerous political void.
Politicians have been unable to form a new government since outgoing
premier Najib Mikati resigned in March. Parliament extended its mandate
by a year and a half in June, skipping scheduled elections largely
because of the instability in the country.
The
country appears to be headed toward a security vacuum in September,
when the term of army commander Gen. Jean Kahwaji expires. Politicians
are divided over whether parliament should meet to extend his mandate.
Analysts say Hezbollah is unlikely to be affected by the wave of attacks targeting its strongholds.
"Hezbollah
is very good at taking punches," said Wazne. He said the group feels
stronger and more assured now that Assad has regained the momentum
against rebels fighting to topple him, largely after the fall of Qusair.
Hezbollah's hard-core Shiite supporters are likely to rally further around the group following such attacks.
In
other developments Wednesday, Kurdish gunmen captured most of a Syrian
town near the border with Turkey after a day of fighting against jihadi
groups in the area, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights said. Such clashes have been common over the past months in
rebel-held areas in northern Syria.
The
Observatory said the fighting in the town of Ras al-Ayn between the
pro-government militia of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD,
and members of al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant left at least 11 dead people dead, including nine
extremists.
Stray bullets from the fighting
killed a 17-year-old in a Turkish town, a Turkish official said.
Turkey's military said it fired into Syria in retaliation for the
killing.
The fighting broke out Tuesday after
the Islamic fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol in the area, capturing a
Kurdish gunman. Wide clashes broke out later in the day after the two
extremist groups rejected a truce offer, according to the Observatory.
Syrian
TV reported Wednesday that a car bomb went off near a mosque in the
Damascus suburb of Kanakir, killing three people and wounding 10 others,
including women and children.
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Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, contributed to this report.