The Lebanese arena is plagued by concerns stemming from recent events in Iraq and the progress made by Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) militants there. It is as if this was the event missing — a surprising synchronization between Iraqi events and a series of security incidents in Lebanon's border area — to transform concern into an obsession among state authorities and the various political forces.

Lebanon had been enjoying several weeks of cautious calm in terms of security. Hezbollah had taken control of and closed most of the Lebanese-Syrian border in the face of armed fundamentalists from the conflict in Syria, and the government carried out a series of successful security measures in Tripoli, the north and Arsal, in the Bekaa Valley. The news of ISIS in northwestern Iraq, however, came as a number of isolated security incidents took place in Lebanon.

On June 10, fundamentalist gunmen managed to sneak from Syria to Ras Baalbek, in the northeast, where they kidnapped eight people, including Lebanese and Syrians. Two days later, on June 12, a displaced Syrian was killed in a shooting targeting a refugee camp in Arsal, also in the northeast near the border with Syria. On June 13, violent clashes broke out between the Syrian army and fundamentalists in the barren lands of Syria’s Rankous region, near Lebanon's eastern border in the vicinity of al-Tufail. News agencies subsequently reported that 12 wounded fundamentalists had been taken to Arsal and admitted to the field hospital of a fundamentalist religious sheikh there. These scattered events, along with what is happening in Iraq, have raised questions of security among the Lebanese.

First, Lebanon is a target of the Sunni fundamentalist ISIS for ideological and doctrinal reasons. It should be noted that the “Sham” part of the organization’s name does not refer to the current, official Syria, but to the Arab Mashreq that also includes Lebanon. Added to this is ISIS’s sectarian struggle with Shiite Hezbollah. This was embodied in a series of bombings and suicide attacks specifically targeting Lebanese Shiite areas.