Despite Lebanon’s economic and security problems, an extremist Christian group has emerged.
Many Lebanese people had questions about who these people were, who financed them, and what their agenda was, with supporters and opponents divided.
who are “Soldiers of God”?
A group of young men calling themselves “Soldiers of God” march out against the Lebanese with swords, sharpened crosses, uniform black clothing, and religious hymns and prayers in the Achrafieh district of Beirut.
As a result, there were many questions about their identity, tendencies, ideas, beliefs, goals, and supporters, with very few answers, which exacerbated the ambiguity and general suspicion.
In the Achrafieh region, on the tenth of December, a dispute took place in Sassine Square between a group of young men from outside the Christian-majority region, who arrived on motorcycles flying Moroccan, Palestinian, and Syrian flags to celebrate the victory of the Moroccan national team and its qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals.
Soon, the celebration turned into launching religious and sectarian slogans of an Islamic nature, which provoked some Christian youths in the region, leading to a major conflict and disagreement in which the “Soldiers of God” emerged after some of them intervened, before the military and security forces separated the combatants.
A Prelude to Civil War
A report by the Army Intelligence indicated that members of a group calling itself “Soldiers of God” rose that night in the “Tayouneh crime”, on October 15, 2021, when members of the Lebanese Forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing seven and wounding dozens.
To ratchet up sectarian tensions, crosses and religious slogans were drawn and written in several eastern neighborhoods before the ambush. Social media incitement was there at the same time.
According to the records, many of them deployed and “are on alert without visible weapons” at several points.
The documents also listed the names of members of this gang who took part in the shooting and revealed their connections to and funding from Anton Sehnaoui, the chairman of the Societe Générale Bank’s board of directors.
Christian soldiers are closer than the security forces
A woman was robbed in Achrafieh, B according to a deputy in Parliament, who claimed that after she went to the Achrafieh police station to report the crime, the soldiers of God showed up at her house and, when she asked how they knew, said that the police station had informed them of the incident.
According to a statement,No contact was received in this regard from a woman with any of the Achrafieh, Gemmayzeh, and Al-Nahar factions.
Also, the last two factions have moved since 11-25-2022 to another building due to maintenance work in the old building as a result of the Beirut port explosion, and until this moment, work is underway to install landline phone numbers in these two factions.
The Beirut Police Operations Room after reviewing the recordings did not receive any communication from a woman in this regard.
The agenda of the Soldiers of God comes under the framework of self-protection aimed at renouncing any sect that is outside the Christian sect and does not follow the teachings of the Church, and this may be a precursor to a civil and bloody war in Lebanon, and it is indispensable for it.