Pope says arms to Syria "must cease" Pope Benedict XVI called for an end to the supply of arms to Syria on Friday as he arrived for a three-day visit to neighbouring Lebanon against a backdrop of heightened religious tensions throughout the Middle East. The pope told reporters on the aeroplane to Beirut that "import of weapons must finally cease" in Syria. He also expressed support for the Arab spring, but noted that it was important to "make freedom go in the right direction" and called fundamentalism "a falsification of religion." A spokesperson for the rebel Free Syrian Army stressed the group's respect for the pope, but said that an arms embargo had to apply to both sides. "It shouldn't stop on our side only," said Louay Mokdad. Can they force the Russians and Iranians to stop sending weapons to kill us? The Pope's visit to the Middle East comes at the end of a week in which violent protests sparked by an anti-Islamic film linked to a Coptic Christian in the US have shaken the region and left the American ambassador to Libya, and three other consular officials, dead. Shortly after the Pope arrived in Beirut, Lebanese protesters were setting fire to an American fast food outlet just 40 miles away in the northern city of Tripoli. The region-wide protests will have particular resonance for Syria's 2m Christians, who are increasingly fearful of some of the more radical forces emerging from the chaos of their country's civil war. "We are afraid of what can happen," said one Christian man in the northern city of Aleppo, the focus of intense fighting between the predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels and the regime, which is made up of adherents to the minority Alawite sect. We are afraid of what happened in Iraq. The spectre of Iraq, where Christians were persecuted by extremists during the civil war that erupted after the fall of Saddam Hussein, hangs over Syrian Christians. The secular rule of Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist state has given them stability, whether or not they actively support the regime's policies. But since it began 18 months ago, the uprising has left the mixture of Greek and Syriac Orthodox, Maronite and Melkite Greek Catholic denominations, in a difficult position. Some have thrown in their lot with the Assad regime, a few have joined the uprising and many have simply sought to keep their heads down. "We are in between, we don't know what to do really," said one Syrian Christian woman in Beirut who had fled the violence in her native city of Homs. Reports of extremist elements emerging among the rebel forces and sightings of the al-Qaeda flag flying in parts of northern Syria have fuelled Christian fears that the dynamics of Iraq could be repeated in Syria. According to Emile Hokayem, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the recent rebel surge in Aleppo was particularly troubling to the city's substantial Christian minority because of the Islamist character of some of the groups fighting there. A small number of Aleppo's Christians are now armed, Mr Hokayem said, and defending their neighbourhoods against rebel fighters in co-ordination with the regime. There is no clear evidence yet to suggest that Christians are being targeted simply because of their faith, but those inside fear it may come. "We prefer not to think Christians are being targeted, but we are afraid of that," said the man in Aleppo. Church leaders in both Syria and neighbouring Lebanon have been criticised for not throwing their weight in behind the revolution. While trying to be diplomatic, the Christian religious establishment is clearly apprehensive about the Syrian uprising. "Our attitude to the Arab spring is conditional," said Paul Matar, the Maronite Archbishop of Beirut. I am ready to go for the Arab spring if I have a role inside. A spring is a spring for everyone. Additional reporting by Giulia Segreti in Rome