ISIS's sway spreads to Lebanon

Support for other, less radical, Islamist movements has withered, he added, “because they don’t have all those great victories.”

In Tripoli’s Bab-el-Tabbaneh neighborhood, where an Islamist militia already holds sway and where Lebanese army checkpoints come under gunfire or grenade attack almost nightly, support for the Sunni radicals of Islamic State is clear. Giant murals of the militant group’s black-and-white flags are painted on the sides of buildings off the main thoroughfare.

“Something scary has happened in Syria and Iraq, and now something strange has come to Tripoli,” said shopkeeper Sam Omar, whose wife’s cousin—a soldier—was killed in one of the recent Tripoli attacks.