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| Middle East |
| Ain al Hilweh camp under siege after deadly shooting incident |
| 2002-07-13 |
| The Lebanese army was laying siege to a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, demanding the handover of a man accused of killing three of its intelligence agents before taking refuge with a militant Palestinian group inside. The army, which sent reinforcements into the Sidon area and around the camp, called on camp leaders to seek out and surrender Badih Hamade, a Lebanese Shiite. Palestinian sources said that Hamade was hiding in the Ain al Helweh camp with Sheikh Abdullah Shreidi, leader of a splinter group of the fundamentalist Usbat al-Ansar, which has many supporters in the camp and is branded as "terrorist" by the United States. Coincidentally, Usbat al-Ansar is reputed to have close ties with al-Qaeda... The popular committees, which include the camp's political and military leaders, issued a statement Friday ordering Shreidi to "hand over the author of the crime who is hiding with him ... otherwise a joint security force will go and winkle him out." The Lebanese army doesn't do a lot of armed winkling these days. Guess they're going to make an exception in this case... Hamade, also known as Abu Obeida, is accused of killing Thursday three military intelligence agents who were watching him on the road between the Ain al Helweh and Mieh-Mieh refugee camps, east of Sidon. He is also accused of being responsible for bomb attacks on military checkpoints around Ain al Helweh in the past few months. A Palestinian source said Hamade was wounded in the shoulder in an exchange of fire Thursday. Bumping off three agents and popping into the local nest of al-Qaeda sympathizers would seem to imply that there's something going in in south Lebanon that bodes ill. Obviously somebody's watching, since there are agents being waxed in the process. I'd be really interested in knowing what they're watching, though... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 Winkle? what the hell is that??? sounds nasty....I'd give myself up in the face of threatened serious winkling |
| Posted by: Frank 2002-07-14 05:21:43 |