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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Army lays siege around camp as fight continues |
| 2007-05-21 |
| TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) - Lebanese troops tightened a siege of a Palestinian refugee camp Monday where a shadowy group suspected of ties to al-Qaida was holed up, pounding the camp with artillery a day after the worst eruption of violence since the end of the country's civil war. Lebanese officials said one of the men killed in Sunday's fighting was a suspect in a failed German train bombing - a new sign that the camp had become a refuge for militants planning attacks outside of Lebanon. In the past, others in the camp have said they were aiming to send trained fighters into Iraq. Saddam El-Hajdib was the fourth-highest ranking official in the Fatah Islam group, an official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. El-Hajdib had been on trial in absentia in Lebanon in connection with the failed German plot and is the brother of another suspect in custody in Germany. Meanwhile, another attack in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut late Sunday raised fears of growing instability across Lebanon. The violence between the army and the Fatah Islam group in the northern port city of Tripoli and the adjacent Nahr el-Bared refugee camp has killed at least 27 soldiers and 20 militants, security officials said Monday. The clashes are a significant blow to a country already mired in a dire political crisis between the western-backed government and Hezbollah-led opposition. Little is known about the ideology and backing of the Fatah Islam group. Some officials in Lebanon believe it has ties to al-Qaida, and the group has said it follows an al Qaida ideology. But other Lebanese officials claim it is simply a Syrian-backed group sent by Damascus to destabilize the country after Syria's forced withdrawal from Lebanon in April 2005. Hundreds of troops, backed by tanks and armoured carriers, surrounded the camp early Monday, as black smoke billowed into the air. The militants responded at daybreak by firing back with mortars. The clashes between army troops surrounding the camp and Fatah Islam fighters began Sunday after a gunbattle raged in a neighbourhood in Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni city known to have Islamic militants, witnesses said. Meanwhile, in Beirut late Sunday, an explosion across the street from a busy shopping mall killed a 63-year-old woman and injured 12 other people in the Christian sector of the Lebanese capital, police said. The bomb left a crater about one-metre deep and three-metres wide, and police said the explosives were estimated to weigh 10 kilograms. The blast - heard across the city - gutted cars, set vehicles ablaze and shattered store and apartment windows. Beirut and surrounding suburbs have seen a series of explosions in the last two years, many targeting Christian areas. Authorities blamed Fatah Islam for Feb. 13 bombings of commuter buses that killed three people, but the group denied involvement. Syria has denied involvement in any of the bombings, but Lebanon's national police commander Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi said Sunday that Damascus was using the Fatah Islam group as a covert way to wreak havoc in the country, with people assuming it's al-Qaida. "Perhaps there are some deluded people among them but they are not al-Qaida. This is imitation al-Qaida, a 'Made in Syria' one," he told The Associated Press. The Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. TV station reported Sunday that among the dead militants were men from Bangladesh, Yemen and other Arab countries, underlining the group's reach outside of Lebanon. A senior Lebanese security official said a high-ranking member of Fatah Islam, known as Abu Yazan, was among those killed. Hundreds of Lebanese applauded the army's tough response in the refugee camp in a sign of the long-standing tensions that remain between some Lebanese and the estimated 350,000 Palestinians who have taken refuge in Lebanon since the creation of Israel in 1948. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said the fighting was a "dangerous attempt at hitting Lebanese security." Mainstream Sunni Muslim leaders, clerics and politicians threw their support behind the army, as did the Palestine Liberation Organization representative in Lebanon. It also underlined the difficulty authorities have in trying to defeat the country's armed groups which control pockets across Lebanon. Fatah Islam is an offshoot of the pro-Syrian Fatah Uprising, which broke from the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement in the early 1980s and has headquarters in Syria, Lebanese officials say. It is believed to be led by Shaker Youssef al-Absi, a Palestinian who was sentenced to death in absentia in July 2004 by a Jordanian military court for conspiring in a plot that led to the assassination in Jordan of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley. Al-Qaida in Iraq and its former leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were blamed for the killing. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #12 “We wish the government would destroy the whole camp and the rest of the camps,” said another in the crowd, Ahmad al-Marooq. “Nothing good comes out of the Palestinians.” Boy nails it in one. |
| Posted by: Mac 2007-05-21 19:04 |
| #11 “We wish the government would destroy the whole camp and the rest of the camps,” said another in the crowd, Ahmad al-Marooq. “Nothing good comes out of the Palestinians.” Heh. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2007-05-21 18:49 |
| #10 “We wish the government would destroy the whole camp and the rest of the camps,” said another in the crowd, Ahmad al-Marooq. “Nothing good comes out of the Palestinians.” Aha, yet another bid for genocide. It warms my heart.
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| Posted by: wxjames 2007-05-21 18:47 |
| #9 Residents of the camp said that water and electricity had been cut off. This begs the question .... Why can Israel do shut off water and electricity in Gaza? Liberalhawk? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-05-21 16:57 |
| #8 The New York Times, which occasionally gets things right, has this to say link : On Sunday, Lebanese citizens, who hold the Palestinians responsible for sparking the civil war in 1975, cheered the army on the streets of Tripoli and outside the camp. Fatah al-Islam has been a growing concern for security authorities in Lebanon and much of the region. Intelligence officials say that the group counts between 150 and 200 fighters in its ranks and that it subscribes to the fundamentalist precepts of Al Qaeda. The group’s leader, Shakir al-Abssi, is a fugitive Palestinian and former associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia who was killed last year in Iraq. In the six months since he arrived from Syria, Mr. Abssi has established a base of operations at the Nahr al Bared camp, the scene of the fighting on Sunday. What began as a raid Sunday on several homes in Tripoli in pursuit of suspected bank robbers connected to Fatah al-Islam quickly escalated into an open confrontation with the group at their stronghold in the camp. Three soldiers and four militants were killed in the early morning confrontation, said a Lebanese security official who was not authorized to speak publicly. Hours later, they said, militants tied to the group attacked an army patrol in the Koura region south of Tripoli, killing four more soldiers. The gunmen also attacked soldiers who were passing by and were unaware of the fighting, said Lebanon’s information minister, Ghazi Aridi. Residents of Tripoli expressed support for the army’s efforts. “This should have happened from the start,” said one man, who stood in a crowd of onlookers as the tanks fired into the camp. The crowd shouted, “God is great, and God protect the army,” with each shell fired. “We wish the government would destroy the whole camp and the rest of the camps,” said another in the crowd, Ahmad al-Marooq. “Nothing good comes out of the Palestinians.” Residents of the camp said that water and electricity had been cut off. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-05-21 16:52 |
| #7 I wuz just watching Fox in the breakroom. They were showing video of some of the fighting. This isn't just a fire-fight, it's pretty heavy. Lots of smoke, explosions, and bodies. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2007-05-21 13:47 |
| #6 Whoops! Lost cookie alert! 'Tis I, Thrurt Lumumba1706. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-05-21 13:18 |
| #5 I find the whole thing amazing: the Lebanese army is actively fighting not only the Palestinians in the camps, but Hizb'allah as well. This is the same Lebanese army that is supposed to be riddled with Shiite Hizb'allah supporters throughout the ranks, that Hizb'allah leadership only last summer claimed that should the army tried to fight them a majority of the soldiers would refuse, that stood by while Syria rearmed Hizb'allah with Iranian weapons smuggled underneath vegetables. The same Lebanese army that was helpless when attacked by Palestinians from the camps not long ago, who'd extended their control beyond the camp gates to the point of attacking with impunity army units patrolling nearby neighborhoods. Truly amazing. Long may it last. |
| Posted by: Thrurt Lumumba1706 2007-05-21 12:33 |
| #4 The MSM is in a vocabulary quagmire lol! Do you mean like this line? The clashes are a significant blow to a country already mired in a dire political crisis between the western-backed government and Hezbollah-led opposition. They are such a joke. Too bad they don't get it. |
| Posted by: Angaiger Tojo1904 2007-05-21 10:41 |
| #3 EXCAL :) LOL. I love when the MSM doesn't have a clue and needs a score card to sort out the bad guys from the bad guys. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-05-21 10:30 |
| #2 Here's hoping the Lebanese are going to use the al-q infestation as a valid reason to just excise the entire "refugee-camp" tumor once and for all... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2007-05-21 08:50 |
| #1 The MSM has is in a vocabulary quagmire as they "pound" out these stories. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-05-21 07:59 |