In Lebanese politics, marriage of convenience

Extremists partner with liberal Hariri

TRIPOLI, Lebanon - When it comes to strange Middle East bedfellows, Lebanon's latest political partnership may be the most unlikely: The leader of one party has a reputation as a playboy with ties to neoconservatives in the Bush administration. The other group is widely viewed as a community of extremists whose puritanical strain of Sunni Islam inspired Osama bin Laden.

Lebanon's Salafists, often equated with terrorists in much of the Arab world, have teamed with Saad Hariri and his mainstream Future Movement to become part of the country's political order.

"They used to be very marginal," Benedetta Berti, a terrorism specialist at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, said of the Salafists. "Now they have to be taken into account by any political movement. They have become a significant political force. Not by number, but in terms of the political impact they could have."

The curious experiment, in one of the Arab world's most democratic political systems, could have implications for the rest of the region. In Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and Algeria, Salafists are often tossed into dungeons.

"One of the main reasons Salafists join the jihadist . . . and terrorist groups is because of alienation and marginalization," said Mustafa Allouch, a Future Movement lawmaker from Tripoli. "They don't find any hope for expressing their ideas. It's better to accept all types of ideas and put them under the light so they don't grow in the darkness."

But some wonder whether the Salafists are evolving into a democratic political bloc or gaming the system to expand their reach and achieve their goals, which include the radicalization of Sunni Muslims.

Salafists are rooted in a 12th-century movement within Sunni Islam that argues for a strict interpretation of the Koran. Funded in part by conservative Sunni religious organizations in the Persian Gulf, Salafist mosques and teachings have spread quickly across the Muslim world.

Hariri has tapped the Salafists' grass-roots social and religious network and strong community ties as a means to build up his base for parliamentary elections in May.

But Hariri, son of slain Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, makes for an awkward fit with Lebanon's increasingly pious Sunni public. Although Salafists dream of reviving a medieval caliphate governed by a strict interpretation of the Koran, Hariri appears to be a liberal democrat.

"He doesn't really have any religious values they share," said Sheik Bilal Said Chabaan, one of the few Sunni clerics in Tripoli aligned with Hariri's opponents. "But they're getting money and benefits."

One cleric likened the alliance to the marriage of convenience between Republicans and the Christian right in America.

"It's the same here," said Khaled Daher, a leader of the Islamic Gathering, a Salafist political group that backs Hariri. "We see Hariri and the Future Movement as the best political movement on the ground for now."