The 'Jihadi Spring' - could Isis gain a foothold in Lebanon?

'We understand no borders,' says one Isis fighter, 'we will go wherever our sheik wants to send us'

Iraqi Kurdish forces take position as they fight jihadist militants
(Image credit: KARIM SAHIB/AFP/Getty Images)

BEIRUT - The sudden, dramatic loss of huge corridors of Iraq to the extremist Sunni group Isis has quite rightly rattled the region. In Lebanon, an unstable country that most analysts predicted would fall prey to violent civil unrest long ago, the stakes are even higher, and fears of a similar development may not be unfounded.

The current rift between Iraq's Sunnis, who account for around 40-45 per cent of citizens, and its Shia people, believed to make up just over 50 per cent, has been brewing ever since the US helped install a Shia prime minister who went on to neglect and marginalise the half of the population not from his sect.

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Venetia Rainey is a Middle East correspondent for TheWeek.co.uk based in Lebanon where she works for the national English-language paper, The Daily Star. Follow her on Twitter @venetiarainey.