NEW YORK

Recent events in Lebanon have drawn attention to the city of Tripoli, the second-largest city in Lebanon. In the Lebanese press, Tripoli is now frequently compared to the Afghan city of Kandahar, another bastion of Islamic conservatism, while the plains to its north are often compared to the Anbar area in Iraq—an area where the Islamic State has received strong support in its war against the Shiʿa-dominated regime in Baghdad. Tripoli is regarded by many as a fertile recruiting ground for radical Sunni Islamist groups, and it is indeed an area where Sunni Islamist groups find a receptive audience. This talk will present the findings from recent fieldwork in Tripoli among different groups of Islamists, a typology of Islamist groups in the city, and an analysis of the Salafi movement in the city.

Rola el-Husseini is a research associate professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She has previously held positions at Texas A&M University and at Yale University. She is the author of Pax Syriana: Elite Politics in Postwar Lebano (Syracuse University Press, 2012) which analyzes events in Lebanon from 1989 to 2011, with a primary focus on the period of Syrian institutionalized influence (1990-2005.)

Prof. Jillian Schwedler (Comparative Politics, Hunter College, CUNY) will be the discussant.