Lebanon’s Daily Star on Friday reported that religious and political figures from the Lebanese city of Sidon have been traveling to Hezbollah’s offices in Beirut to try to convince Hezbollah leaders to reverse their recent decision to reactivate and boost the activities of the organization’s Resistance Brigades inside Sidon:

The decision risks reaggravating tensions in Sidon’s neighborhoods, according to the source.

The move could disrupt the relative calm of the last few months that arose after the cessation of divisive political speeches by various groups in the city and Hezbollah’s restrictions on the Resistance Brigades.

Last summer, political sources told The Daily Star that a number of security incidents in the city and its suburbs, all involving brigade members, had raised fears the group was becoming increasingly reckless since Salafist Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir fled in June, sources said.

The militia, created by Hezbollah in 2009, has been a source of tension inside Lebanon in general, and specifically in Sidon. Hezbollah let it be known through Lebanese media that – in response to local concerns over the thuggishness of Resistance Brigades members – it was disbanding the militias in Sidon. Those reports turned out to be false, and in December Hezbollah reportedly ordered a “general mobilization” of Resistance Brigades fighters in response to a possible “snowball” of Sunni-Shiite conflict.

The gangs were deployed a few weeks ago against several Sunni towns in Lebanon, after Hezbollah seized the strategically critical Syrian border city of Yabroud.

Hanin Ghaddar – the managing editor of the Lebanese-focused NOW outlet – described the sudden upsurge in violence as Hezbollah spiking the football:

Mere news of victory was not enough: Hezbollah needed to prove that its conquest of Yabroud would bear fruit on the ground in Lebanon. The Lebanese people, mainly the Shiite community, had stopped buying into theatrical propaganda after the bodies of their friends, brothers, and children started returning from Syria. So the Party of God used its allies and gangs – the Resistance Brigades – to terrorize several Sunni-inhabited neighborhoods and towns that are described by Hezbollah’s propaganda machine as operational centers for the terrorists threatening Lebanon’s security.

[Photo: Channel 4 News / YouTube ]