Weapons keep silent, the Jund el Shaam militianmen (the warriors of the Great Syria) are pulled out behind the barriers of the Palestinian refugee camp in Ain el Helwi nearby Sidone, (in Arabic, Saida), south Lebanon.

During the past days, the civil war of Nahr el Bared, north of Tripoli, seemed to reach the unauthorized village of El Taamiin. A village grown bigger, a city in the city, which, according to Unrwa official data, should host among 60 and 70 thousand residents, but in fact house more than 100 thousand. Two thirds of the real inhabitants of Ain El Helwi live in the illegal, big buildings grown by a conglomeration which evaded Unrwa statistic check and the Palestinian authority for security.

Weapons keep silent. The Lebanese army have increased up to one hundred the garrison troops protecting the west entrance of the biggest camp in the country, in order to avoid further fights. In this camp you can find Eritrean but mainly Syrian refugees. The local division of al Fatah, under the control of the colonel Akib el Hashi (he knows his job: he has eluded nine attacks) deputed to the security of the camp, has placed a control patrol as security line in order to avoid that pro-Jihad militantmen could keep in contact with the Lebanese army. The engagements in the last two days have caused the death of two militianmen and two men in the regular army. Everything seem to get back to normal in the Syrian district, refugees from the neighbouring country, like those merged Jund el Sham, who fled from the Assan father’s persecutions, hunted from Damascus in the ‘80’s. Jund el Sham is a group where some deserter flowed in from the Jihaid Usbat el Ansar group, critical towards the pro-Shiite and pro-Hezbollah positions. Jund el Shaam in fact preaches the Sunni oneness against Israel.

Sidone is still far away. Yesterday Abu Hureira, spokesman of the Sunni group protagonist of the battles in Nahr el Bared, Fatah el Islam, has announced “to be ready to set the fire of the civil war to the south and in particular in Sidone”, referring to Ain el Helwi. Immediately after Fatah el Islam, while fights were drawing to a close, stated that there is no connection between them and the Jund el Shaam group which fired on the army in the last days. “At present these are only internal fights due to the Sunni troops. They avoided the Fatah’s checks and the official Palestinian groups – said Fuad Andas, a Palestinian who came back to Italy after the last summer fights in his native Tyre – any fight expansion is possible because Amal and Hezbollah, the main Shiite groups, are keeping an accomodating position. Suffice it to say that three Hezbollah militants have been killed by security in the Beirut airport last week, officially because they didn’t stop at the patrol alt. A hard incident but the Hezbollah leader, sheik Nasrallah, tried to minimize and just requested the security troops to be more careful”.

El Taamiin district has always gone along tensions, such as the death of a twelve years boy during Ramadan because of a clash between young gangs. Last week a Jund el Shaam militant fired wildely when he knew that his brother had been killed during the Nahr el Bared fights. Now peace is back again but nobody can say for how long. “Not even Jund el Shaam men know when the powder keg will blow up”, ends by phone Maalek Osta, a producer for the television agency ‘Reuters’ in Sidone.