The S.P.E.C.T.R.E. of Al-Qaeda is looming over Lebanon as the army battles a shadowy band of Islamist fighters inspired by the ideology of Osama bin Laden's terror network. "If there is no quick political solution which brings an end to the siege of Nahr al-Bared ... the combatants of Al-Qaeda will be flowing into Lebanon," warned Omar Bakri Mohammad, an Islamist preacher who was barred from Britain two years ago for his radical views. "Fatah al-Islam has succeeded in creating ties with the city's Salafist movements," said the Syrian-born Bakri, who had praised the Al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as the "magnificent 19." "There are two currents within Fatah al-Islam, and the one that is linked to Al-Qaeda is taking over," warned Bakri. He said Al-Qaeda-linked fighters were behind several bomb attacks in Beirut and the mountain resort town of Aley outside the capital. "It is the one that has carried out the attacks in Beirut and the region of Aley," he said, referring to attacks in and around the capital since the clashes in the north began on May 20. Bakri said that when the gunbattles first erupted between Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese Army, Abssi had called his deputy Bilal Dokmak to ask him to mediate to stop the bloodshed.
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