Al-Hassan's assassination gave the Lebanese Sunni community an opportunity to use domestic anger toward an embattled Syrian regime and Western attention on the region to attempt to recreate an atmosphere similar to that of the 2005 Western-backed Cedar Revolution, which put Syria and its allies like Hezbollah on the defensive in Lebanon.

Instead, clashes subsided relatively quickly after the assassination as Lebanese leaders from various sects, along with foreign stakeholders like Saudi Arabia and the United States, urged all sides to back down to avoid a larger sectarian conflagration. Numerous Lebanese commentators in the media have argued that this serves as evidence that Lebanon will avoid spillover violence from Syria because Lebanese citizens understand the costs of political disintegration along sectarian lines and will focus on supporting the central government and holding the country together.

From Stratfor's perspective, an enfeebled confessional government in Beirut will not help Lebanon avert the sectarian blowback from Syria. Conflict has been avoided in Lebanon thus far because sectarian groups are still in the preparation phase of conflict. It is not that any one faction is seeking a confrontation; rather, each faction is preparing for the worst, and in Lebanon that means arming militias and looking to sectarian affiliates for strength before an arguably inevitable clash.

The Lebanese Sunni faction will be among the most important to watch during this preparation phase. The al-Hassan assassination exposed just how fragmented the Lebanese Sunni community has become. Lebanese locals have described how the secular Sunni Future Movement led by the al-Hariri family has experienced a dramatic drop in support among Sunnis. There are growing complaints from Lebanese Sunnis that their leadership has abandoned them and gone to live abroad. They feel that their community lacks protection while other Lebanese factions — including the Shia, the Druze and the Maronites — have strong representatives and militias. As early as 2007, the Future Movement attempted to build up its own militia, the Tripoli Brigades, with retired Sunni commanders and volunteers from low-income neighborhoods. However, the lackluster results of this initiative — especially in comparison to a well-trained and ideologically committed militia like Hezbollah — have dissatisfied the Sunnis.

The loss in faith in the secular Sunni leadership is leading a growing number of Sunnis to drift to Sunni Islamist groups for protection. Radical Islamist activity in Lebanon, with Tripoli as its epicenter, is highly dynamic — particularly among the Sunnis. On one side, there are more mainstream Islamist groups such as Jamaat al Islamiyah that are eager to become part of the regional rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and build up a legitimate political presence in the state. On the other side are the more radical Salafist jihadists, who have been making their way into the region from various parts of the Islamic world to aid in the Syrian rebellion. Sunni Islamists from this faction have little interest in politics, but bring ideological zeal and battle experience to the conflict.

Stratfor has received indications that various Lebanese Sunni Islamist groups are collaborating in an effort to mobilize a militia to fight in Syria. An estimate that could not be verified claimed that about 10,000 fighters are currently mobilizing in Sunni-concentrated areas of northern Lebanon between Wadi Khaled and Akroum. Notably, the late al-Hassan allegedly was involved in helping provide this militia with military equipment to aid its operations in Syria.

The foreign stakeholders in the Syrian conflict naturally are concerned about the growing presence of Salafist jihadists in the region, and — given the options — would prefer to rely on groups like Jamaat al Islamiyah that carry a political agenda to act as a bulwark against Hezbollah. But again, therein lie divisions: Turkey has an interest in promoting Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamism in the region, while Saudi Arabia views the regional rise of the Muslim Brotherhood as an existential threat to the monarchy. This is a messy landscape for any foreign party to navigate, but the growing influence of Sunni Islamist groups in Lebanon within this tense sectarian environment is a strong hint of the instability to come.