A Tale of Two Villages

Christian and Druze, united by geography, divided by hate

Some of the bloodiest fighting in the hills above Beirut has taken place between two neighboring villages, one Christian, one Druze. Like a Middle East version of the Hatfields and McCoys, the inhabitants of each town see their neighbors as mortal enemies, even though they live only a few hundred yards apart. TIME Correspondent Roberto Suro visited the two Aley-region villages just before the latest clashes erupted. His report:

On the narrow, winding road to the Druze village of Aytat, cars are frantically waved to a stop by a crouching militiaman. He yells to his colleagues hidden in the trees that a vehicle is about to brave the 50-yard stretch exposed to Christian snipers, and they prepare to lay down covering fire if necessary. Then the militiaman shouts, "One, two, three, go!" The traveler slams the gas pedal to the floor. Sometimes the car makes it to the other side unscathed, sometimes not.

In the neighboring Christian village of Suq al Gharb, motorists suffer similar perils. At one intersection a sign warns passersby: DANGER. SNIPERS. STAY TO THE RIGHT. The sign is obsolete; even the right side of the road is hazardous now. Druze fighters in Aytat are constantly finding new fields of fire. "As soon as you think you know where it is safe to walk, they find another way to shoot at you," complains Munira Nassar, a housewife. One of her neighbors was wounded while hanging out laundry from a kitchen window.

As seen from Beirut, Suq al Gharb and Aytat look like a single town strung across a ridge rising 2,900 feet above the capital's southern suburbs. Yet lines of trenches mark the boundaries between the two villages, and the residents are divided by chasms of suspicion and bitterness. "They are terrified of us, and we are terrified of them," Nassar says. "We are so afraid of each other that it will be difficult for us to be friends again."

In Lebanon's endless litany of sectarian violence, no feud has proved more bitter than that between Christians and Druze. The primary battlefield in their long-running confrontation is the Chouf, where both groups sought refuge from Sunni Muslim persecutors 1,000 years ago. Before Lebanon deteriorated into outright civil war in 1975, Aytat and Suq al Gharb lived in peace as summer resorts. Wealthy Arabs were drawn to the towns' cool mountain air scented by thick stands of parasol pines. Since the fighting resumed in earnest last October, the villages have become ghost towns. Gardens are overgrown, grape arbors drop their fruit into rotting piles. The newer four-and five-story apartment buildings are dotted with jagged black holes, evidence of frequent artillery exchanges. Virtually all the windows in both towns have been shattered by explosions, and prudent homeowners have replaced them with double layers of sandbags.

No one in either village can recall exactly when the latest troubles began, but each side blames the other for striking the first blow. The first skirmishes were provoked last summer by kidnapings and assaults that may have been the result of family feuds. By October, Aytat and Suq al Gharb were virtually at war with each other.