Hezbollah's role in Syrian civil war drives sectarian tension in Lebanon BEIRUT - Lebanese groups on opposite ends of the nation's polarized political spectrum are starting to play a more public role in the Syrian civil war, rendering Lebanon's stated policy of neutrality toward the two-year conflict increasingly obsolete and threatening the tenuous stability of this Arab country. Although the Lebanese militant and political group Hezbollah has acknowledged little about its role in the fighting next door, Syrian rebels and an analyst close to the Shiite organization, a longtime ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, say it has amplified its operations inside Syria in recent weeks, adding muscle and firepower to an ongoing Syrian military offensive to retake a strategically important border zone from the rebels. Lebanese on both sides of sectarian divide say they are taking up arms in crucial border zone. Serious charges against man from Washington state are "clearly substantiated," officials say. Seoul's withdrawal from joint industrial complex follows a blockade of the facility by Pyongyang. Jason Rezaian With elections ahead, a crackdown that followed the 2009 contest has altered the political stage. Amy Kazmin Health, safety concerns may drive exodus of retailers, compounding damage from political infighting. That acceleration has provoked a backlash from Hezbollah's Sunni opponents inside Lebanon, who had mostly stayed on the sidelines until now. This past week, two prominent firebrand clerics publicly called on their Sunni followers to go to Syria to fight Hezbollah on behalf of Syria's predominantly Sunni rebels. One of the clerics, Ahmad al-Assir, said that his call to jihad had already galvanized a volunteer force of hundreds of young men. Syria's increasingly sectarian civil war has yet to spill deeply into religiously diverse Lebanon, where more than 60 percent of the population is Muslim, split roughly between Sunnis and Shiites. But political analysts say opposing Lebanese groups" growing involvement in the conflict next door is exacerbating dangerous tensions that have periodically erupted into sectarian clashes in the past year. In recent weeks, Syrian rebels have intentionally fired shells at Hermel, a Lebanese border town near al-Quseir that is a Hezbollah stronghold. Echoing a view that is gaining ground among Lebanese, Assir and Mohammad Obeid, a Shiite analyst with close ties to Hezbollah, said that Lebanon's official policy of neutrality toward the Syrian war is no longer worth taking seriously. Everyone has violated it. So it's not only Hezbollah," Obeid said. Everyone is now acting on a sectarian basis toward the Syrian crisis. The increasingly overt public polarization in Lebanon over Syria's war - and an expanding debate in the news media and mosques over Hezbollah's participation in it - could expose Lebanon to a regional backlash if Syrian rebels and the Arab Gulf states backing them decide to target Hezbollah on its own turf, said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Hezbollah's movement in the Syrian border region of al-Quseir indicates "a new type of engagement, a new threshold" that, coupled with the Sunni reaction it has provoked, is "one more step in a bad trajectory," Salem said. Increased activity, fighting Political analysts and Syrian opposition activists said Hezbollah has been involved in the Syrian conflict to some extent for more than a year, despite the group's public claims that its members are merely protecting Shiites on the Lebanese side of the border. But recent reports from residents and rebels in the al-Quseir region suggest a new level of intensity.