Would there be reprisals?
There's a real atmosphere of fear and pressure, because there are reprisals for the workers; they have to pay a €10,000 (£8,800) fee if they talk about what they're doing.
"They're saying the Liberians are rebels, they're coming to kill them, so there's reprisal," explained Isaac Tuee, 29, a former engineer who had also signed up to go home to Liberia.
The authorities are particularly concerned because Iran — one of Mr. Assad's closest allies — has said there will be reprisals against Israel if the United States attacks Syria.
They were reprisals for Muslim invasions.
But Israeli officials, warning that there would be reprisals, put the onus for Saturday's violence entirely on Mr. Arafat and his Palestinian Authority.
For example, after attacks in Sydney raised fears there would be reprisals against members of the Muslim community, thousands of people tweeted #illridewithyou in solidarity.
A culture of fear surrounding the so-called Gulenists, however exaggerated, is so endemic that few here will talk openly about them on the telephone, fearing that their conversations are being recorded and that there will be reprisals.
And by drawing Christians, Druse, Shiites and Alawites into the civil war on an explicitly sectarian basis, the Syrian government has all but guaranteed that there will be reprisals against these communities if Mr. Assad falls.
