A considerable part of the people in Syria revolted for democracy, freedom and equality on March 2011. At the end of more than a year since then, the sectarian character of the uprising in Syria started to come more to the forefront. The uprising in Syria rather turned into “an uprising of the Sunni Arab majority against the Nusayri minority power”. Of course, this definition is insufficient to completely explain the problem in Syria. In fact, many examples could be given to refute the aforesaid argument. For example, it is known that Christians and even Nusayris as well are found within the opposition movement, and that some secular Sunni Arab nationalists support Assad. Nevertheless, many indicators show that one of the most important aspects (not the only one) of the problem in Syria is sectarian differences. For instance, almost all of the provinces, where the uprisings have taken place, are the ones such as Hama, Homs, Dar'aa, Deir ez-Zor, Aleppo, Idlib. The Christians and even limited number of Nusayri prominents act in unison with the opposition, but these aforesaid communities do not collectively support the protest demonstrations. In addition to this, considering the positions the regional actors have taken sectarian aspects of the problem come out. While Iran stands behind the Assad regime, Saudi Arabia actively supports the opposition. The most explicit and maybe the most dangerous repercussion of this polarization is observed in Lebanon. While Hezbollah, which is one of the Lebanese Shia groups, supports the government in Syria, Lebanese Sunnis take sides with the Syrian opposition.                    
 
As a matter of fact, the aforesaid Lebanese actors do not designate their positions just by depending on the connection stemming from the sectarian link. Lebanese Sunnis and Shias have an attitude towards a change with a capacity of determining their future within the country. It is inevitable for Lebanon, which is historically in a direct impact area of Syria, not to be affected by the government change in Syria. Therefore, the Lebanese groups regard the Syrian problem as a development that will shape their own social, political and economic futures; and they have been striving to change the process in Syria in their own favour. In the international press, certain news suggesting that Hezbollah sends militants in order to suppress the uprisings in Syria, as well as asserting that the Hariri Group, the leader of Sunnis, provide arms and financial support for the opposition could be given as the examples of this active support.          
 
So that, the instability that has been going on in Syria for over a year incites sectarian polarizations in Lebanon. Considering Lebanon's fragile social and political structure depending on sensitive balances, the possibility of a sectarian conflict threatening the country or maybe the whole region gradually increases. On the other hand, the developments taking place in Lebanon in recent months increase those concerns. In Tripoli, located in northern Lebanon, many people died during the conflicts taking place between Sunnis and Nusayris; and the Lebanese army had to intervene in the events. The recent developments have revealed two important facts, related both to Lebanon and to Syria:   
 
1. In the recent years, Lebanese Sunnis have started to be armed and become a major armed force.
 
2.  The northern Lebanon has turned into an active base of the support provided for the opposition movement in Syria.
 
The first fact is a development that would negatively affect the stability of Lebanon. The fact that each group forms its own armed militia group brings back the time before the civil war that started in 1975. The fact that the number of armed groups, which act independently from the national army and security forces, and sometimes which go beyond their force as in the example of Hezbollah, is on rise increases the risk of domestic armed conflict. During the Lebanese civil war which ended in 1990, only Hezbollah had been allowed not to cease fire. The reason was the fact that Israel's invasion of Southern Lebanon continued, and that Hezbollah fought against Israel. Following the Israeli withdrawal from the Southern Lebanon in 2000, there were some pressures from inside of the country arguing that Hezbollah should cease fire, but Hezbollah did not respond to these calls. On the other hand, the fact that Hezbollah started to use its armed force as an element supporting its position in the Lebanese domestic policy began to worry the other groups. The turning point in this respect took place on May 2008. Following the decisions taken by the Lebanese Government on the removal of communication system which belongs solely to Hezbollah, separate from the government; and to the discharge of head of Beirut's airport security, Hezbollah had invaded Western Beirut in a quite short period of time and laid siege to the house of Saad Hariri, the leader of Sunnis. The Hezbollah leader Nasrallah described the May 7 events, which led to the fall of government, as a “holy day” later on. So that, Hezbollah explicitly used its arms against the Lebanese people for the first time. During the events, the Lebanese army remained ineffective against Hezbollah. This situation increased the existing concerns of Sunnis and they started to feel the need to be armed because of the weakness of central power. Following Hezbollah's invasion attempt in 2008, the heads of Lebanese Salafis already gave the signs of armament back then by stating that, “Our youth should prepare for a new armed resistance process in both psychological and logistical terms.” [1] Thus, there is such a background behind the fact that Lebanese Salafi groups were armed, which has been brought out upon the recent events in Lebanon.                                
 
However, what made it possible despite the urge to be armed was the uprising in Syria. Tens of thousands of Syrian people escaping from the military operations settled in Northern Lebanon, where Sunnis are in majority, and particularly in Tripoli. Tripoli is a conservative city, whose Sunni Muslim identity dominates. And the vast majority of the people coming from Syria are Sunni Muslims escaping from Homs. Therefore, the city has directly been meshed with the events in Syria in the recent months. The locals of Tripoli have been helping the ones who escaped from Syria, and they host them. Besides, there is also a certain base of Salafis and Lebanon's Muslim Brotherhood movement in Tripoli. Allegedly and also according to the Syrian opposition, these movements support the Free Syrian Army. The primary cause lying behind the emergence of the events in Lebanon was the Lebanese government's striving to prevent those supports. Both as a result of presence of the people from Homs and also as a result of the support of local forces, Northern Lebanon has become one of the most important centers of the Syrian opposition. One of the most important dimensions of the support is the arm supply. This atmosphere accelerated the armament process of Salafis in Tripoli. As observed in the recent events, the armed groups, which are composed of hundreds of people, reached such a capacity to be able to clash with the Lebanese army.                    
 
The Course of Events in Lebanon
 
The allegations regarding that certain Lebanese groups had a role in the events in Syria were firstly mentioned by the Syrian government at the end of last year. During the terrorist attack organized against the Syrian security forces in Damascus on December 2011, 40 people were killed and more than 100 people were wounded. Syria pointed out Al-Qaeda regarding these attacks, and the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman stated that the Lebanese government had already warned Damascus about the possibility that Al Qaeda militants might enter in Syria.[2]     
 
The first settlement that the Syrian opponents declared as liberated area was Zabadani, located on the Lebanese border. It was stated that the city was under the authority of a local government, and that the freedom was ensured by the Free Syrian Army. [3] It was not possible for the opposition to achieve such a success without the support of Northern Lebanese local forces. Therefore, it was understood that the Syrian frontier zone on the northern Lebanon had become an important base for the opponents.      
 
 
The first repercussions of the tension in Syria on Tripoli, Lebanon, started to be observed on February 2012. Nusayris live in Jabal Mohsen neighborhood of the city, where Sunni population is in majority. Two people living in Jabal Mohsen were killed during the conflicts between Nusayris, who support the Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the Assad opponents (Sunnis, Salafis). [4] Another news showing the role that Tripoli and Northern Lebanon played for the Syrian opposition was on the Arab press. Accordingly, in the news that a reporter based on the interviews made in Tripoli; arms traffic between the local Sunni components and Syrian opponents was put forward. The merchants of this deal came up and the prices of arms going on the black market was increasing with each passing day. In the interview made with an opponent, who escaped from Homs and settled in Tripoli, he said that; “we don't ask for a security corridor or a military intervention. All we ask is arms.” Again in the same news, the opponents argued that the easiest way to transfer arms to Syria is Lebanon. [5] Similar allegations were also mentioned by Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations (UN) special envoy to the Middle East. Stating that arms are being smuggled in both directions between Lebanon and Syria, Roed-Larsen indicated that “Based on information that we have,  there are reasons to believe that there is a flow of arms both ways - from Lebanon into Syria and from Syria into Lebanon.” [6] In addition to this, there were also news in the press stating that the Free Syrian Army militants, who receive open support from Salafis, could carry arms while around the Akkar district, and that they sent arms, munition and rebels from here to Syria. [7]                      
 
There were so many border crossing on the Syria-Lebanon borderline that from time to time, the Syrian army carried the operations to the cross-border in order to catch the opponents escaping to Lebanon. According to the news published in March, it was stated that “Syrian soldiers entering in Lebanon in armored vehicles clashed with the opponents”. [8] In that period, the number of Syrian people in Lebanon was almost 19 thousand.    
 
Even though the people in Northern Lebanon helped the Syrian opposition, the Lebanese government that is in power with the support of Hezbollah was striving to prevent the support to the Syrian opposition. In this direction, in an investigation carried out by the Lebanese Army intelligence for a different purpose, it was stated they detected that the Lebanese soldiers stole arms from barracks and sold them to smugglers, and it was also stated according to the intelligence that these arms were carried in Syria through the Beqaa Valley. [9] In line with the same efforts of the Lebanese government, in April, the Lebanese navy impounded a Sierra Leone-registered ship loaded with a large consignment of arms and ammunition. In the ship, which was reportedly told to have arrived from Libya, allegedly there was light and heavy weaponry in the consignment to be given to the Syrian opponents. [10]                
 
The Salafi groups in Tripoli started to be armed because of reasons such as; increasing relations and cooperation, as well as arms smuggling, between the Syrian opponents and Sunnis from Tripoli. The existing polarization and conflict potential between Sunnis and the Nusayri minority living in the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood of Tripoli stemming from the events in Syria began to increase with each passing day. Adding thousands of Syrian opponents, who escaped from Homs and took refuge in Tripoli, certain conditions started to develop in terms of the close combat in the city. What ignited the wick between the parties was the fact that in early May, some pro-opposition Syrians abducted 5 people from the Nusayri neighborhood because of a conflict related to the arms smuggling. Following that, a rocket was launched against al-Qubah district, which is a Sunni region of Tripoli. In response to this attack, Nusayris abducted 15 Syrian people and then conflicts started. The tension in the city peaked upon the fact that Shadi al Mevlevi, who is a member of the organization called “Young Islamists”, was taken into custody within the scope of an investigation carried out on a terrorist organization; and the activists, who blocked the roads, tried to bust the office of  the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. [11] The Sunni Islamist Shadi Mevlevi was arrested for having been in cooperation with the Syrian rebels. The government increased the pressure on the aforesaid groups by claiming that the Islamist movements in here provided weaponry for Syrian immigrants and the Syrian opposition. It was alleged that Mevlevi responded to the call of Salafi groups in Tripoli and he entered in Syria, joined the ranks of opponents fighting against the President Bashar Assad, reached arms and gained militants for the Syrian opponents. [12] However, the support of the Tripoli people, who quite agree with the Syrian opposition, for the opposition could not be prevented. In addition to this, Salafis, who were observed to have formed a regular army, seized the control of the city for a short period of time, and eight people were killed at the end of the conflicts between the army and Salafis.[13]                  
 
The Syrian leader Bashar Assad also mentioned the allegations regarding that the northern Lebanon turned into an important region supporting the Syrian opposition, and that there is a flow of arms on the border. Assad asserted that armed rebels entered in the country from the Lebanese border. [14] According to a news on the Lebanese press, it was suggested that the arms smuggling in the northern Lebanon increased upon the new implementations that make  it difficult for Turkey, Jordan and Iraq to reach arms to the opponents in Syria, and it was also stated that Tripoli was the center of smuggling. It was alleged that Northern Lebanon became an important center for reaching arms to Syria, and that Tripoli, where Nusayri and Sunni population clashed, was in the heart of this route, and that the Salafi organizations in the city supported the Free Syrian Army. [15]       
 
The development increasing the tension in Lebanon was the fact that the Sunni clergyman Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahed, who is well-known with his anti-Syrian President Bashar Assad line, was killed by gunfire after failing to stop at the military checkpoint in the Akkar district of the northern Lebanon on May 20^th. Following this event, Sunnis poured into streets in Beirut, the capital. At the end of the conflicts lasting for about 5 hours in the capital between Sunnis and the party supporters close to Hezbollah, three people were killed. [16] In addition to Beirut, protests were organized also in Tripoli, where the Sunni majority lives, and in Akkar.         
 
For the time being, the events in Lebanon ended upon the release of Shadi al-Mevlevi, which is considered as the beginning of the events pouring Salafis into the streets. [17] Nevertheless, Lebanon turned into a powder keg for certain reasons such as; the repercussions of the Sunni-Nusayri conflict in Syria, the fact that many opponent Sunni Syrians took refuge in the country, and the fact that Lebanese Salafis started to be armed in the recent years in order to create a balance against Hezbollah. A slightest events might directly lead to a sectarian conflict. In Lebanon, the sides are becoming sharper and the parties are being armed. We can also add the policies of the countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia that increase the polarization in Lebanon. In such an environment, an attack against a prominent Lebanese political and religious figure could lead to larger-scaled conflicts across the country.