Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Amid tensions, Fatah offshoot accuses Islamist rivals of turning West Bank into Syria

2023-09-21

[IsraelTimes] In video, Tanzim militia accuses factions of seditious ties to Iran; PA officials accuse Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", of working with Salafi-jihadist forces in Leb
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
camp.

In a video circulating on social media since Tuesday, a dozen turbans of the pro-Fatah Tanzim militia accused a rival Islamist gang of turning the West Bank into "Syria, Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
and Iraq" — three Middle East countries wracked by civil wars over the past decade, with the involvement of Tehran.

In their video statement, the Tanzim members accused the Jenin Battalion — a local wing of the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
terror group — of conspiring with "Persian Shi’ite Iran" against Fatah, the "only Sunni weapon in the Arab homeland," in a bid to sow strife and chaos among the Paleostinian people.

The Tanzim militia is an armed offshoot of Fatah founded in 1995 by Yasser Arafat to counter rival Paleostinian Islamist groups. The militia, officially headed by Marwan Barghouti who is imprisoned in Israel for deadly terror attacks, has sought to siphon support from Islamist groups towards the PA leadership.

The Tanzim message introduced an atypical anti-Shiite element in Fatah’s rhetoric against opposing factions, evoking common anti-Shiite canards such as their "insulting the Companions of the Prophet [Muhammad]" — a reference to a theological dispute between Sunnis and Shiites on the legitimate successors to the Prophet.

Both the PIJ and Hamas, Fatah’s most prominent Islamist rivals, have made no secret of their close collaboration with Tehran, which supplies them with money and weaponry. Leaders of the two groups met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Damascus in May and again with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in early September in Beirut. Last year, PIJ chief Ziad Nakhaleh said his organization took "direct orders" from the Quds Force’s late commander Qassem Soleimani

and that rockets it used to attack Israel were provided by Iran.

The video statement came amid escalating tensions between the PA’s security services and terror groups in the northern West Bank. The Jenin Battalion is suspected of being behind recent attacks against PA security forces, which included shooting toward their headquarters in Jenin and a shooting against a patrol car of the customs police on September 18, in which four agents were maimed.

In response, the PA announced it had compiled a list of 30 Jenin Battalion members it is about to arrest, including some who are on Israel’s top wanted list, continuing an ongoing crackdown on the terror group.

The Jenin Battalion is also responsible for Tuesday’s festivities with the IDF in the Jenin refugee camp, in which four operatives were killed.

The Tanzim video came one day after the Fatah branch in Jenin issued a statement accusing its internal enemies of collaboration with an "Iranian-Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
" axis (a contradiction, as Islamic State was born out of antagonism to Shiites and has carried out terror attacks inside Iran).

The allegation indicated an attempt by PA officials to group together radical Islamist rivals on multiple fronts. For nearly two months, Fatah forces have been engaged in another armed confrontation outside the West Bank, in the Ein el-Hilweh Paleostinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, which erupted when a Fatah general was killed in late July.

Whee. A war of all against all.

Analysts on the PA’s Awda TV channel have claimed that the festivities between Fatah security forces and Islamist groups have been fueled by terrorist Salafi-jihadi elements infiltrating into Lebanon from Syria, with links to Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Such radical groups are referred to in Arabic as takfiri

...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed...
, for their practice of excommunicating (takfir) any Moslem who does not subjugate themselves to their turban interpretation of religion.

The presence of such turban groups is an established fact in Ein el-Hilweh, for instance, the camp was the birthplace of a radical Salafi group called Osbat al-Ansar, which was declared a terror organization after 9/11 for its ties to al-Qaeda, and bombed nightclubs and liquor stores in an attempt to establish an Islamic state in Lebanon.

Various PA sources have accused Hamas members in the Lebanese camp of having entered into a collaboration with jihadist groups. In an editorial in the PA’s official newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida, Fatah Revolutionary Council member Muwaffaq Matar accused the "Islamic State-like" Hamas of using the support of other more radical terror groups in Ein el-Hilweh to advance its plans to control the Paleostinian political and security leadership, at the expense of the real goal — the struggle for Paleostinian "liberation."

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Fighting erupts in Paleo refugee camp

2017-04-13

Clashes between Fatah movement and Takfiri militants renewed in Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp after terrorists violated an agreement reached on Tuesday.

Al-Manar correspondent reported intensified clashes in Al-Tireh neighborhood on Wednesday, noting that RPGs (Rocket-propelled grenade) and gunfire have been heard in Sidon and its suburbs.

A deal was announced earlier on Tuesday, following a meeting for Palestinian factions who agreed to dissolve the so-called “security zone” of Takfiri militant group of Bilal Badr, which has been engaged in deadly clashes with Fatah movement and different fighters of the Palestinian Joint Security Force since Friday.

The agreement between the factions led Bilal Badr to flee the Al-Tireh neighborhood of the camp in return for the recently re-established joint security forces to deploy. However, the deployment of the Joint Force was delayed after Badr insurgents fired shots at the Joint Security Force members to block their entry on Tuesday.

The 100-member-force Joint Security Force includes members of Fatah Movement, Hamas, Osbat al-Ansar and other nationalist and Islamist Palestinian groups.

Tensions have been high in Sidon since last Friday, when Badr group opened fire on the Joint Security Force fighters as they were deploying in Al-Tireh neighborhood, as a part of an agreement following an earlier battle which lasted for days in the refugee camp last February.

Schools and universities have been closed since Friday due to fierce clashes which killed at least 8 people and injured dozens others.

Source: Al-Manar

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

al-Qaeda linked fighters attack Paleo Kops in Sidon

2017-04-09

Casualties were reported as fierce fighting erupted on Friday in Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, after extremist militants opened fire on the joint Palestinian security force.

Al-Manar correspondent in Sidon reported that Bilal Badr group, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, opened fire on the joint security force which was deploying in one of the three posts agreed upon following the last battle which lasted for days in the refugee camp last February.

Our correspondent said that the 100-member-force led by Brig. Gen. Bassam al-Saad managed on Saturday morning to get into Al-Tireh area, the stronghold of Badr group, forcing the Takfiri group to retreat to Al-Safsaf area.

The newly formed Palestinian joint security force includes members of Fatah Movement, Hamas, Osbat al-Ansar and other Palestinian factions.

RPGs (Rocket-propelled grenade) and gunfire have been heard across the camp till Saturday morning, our correspondent said, putting the toll of the clashes so far at two killed and 13 injured.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Report: Fatah Members Receiving Military Training in Tyre Camp

2017-03-07

[AnNahar] Hundreds of Fatah Movement fighters are receiving military teachings and combat lessons in the Paleostinian refugee camp of al-Rashidieh in the southern town of Tyre, An Nahar daily reported on Monday.

"The activity which has been going on for a year now, is carried out with the cognition of the Lebanese Security Forces. The matter was thoroughly discussed during the recent visit of Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
to Beirut in February, through Paleostinian Authority security chief Majid Faraj who spoke at length in that regard with General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim and senior army intelligence officers," added the daily.

"The development in the Lebanese-Paleostinian relations are much welcomed by Fatah," said the daily. "According to Paleostinian leaders, it would support the Paleostinians' position mainly in the fragile Ein el-Hellhole refugee camp and maintain safe security situation --that was highly emphasized by Abbas during his meetings with Lebanese officials."

According to Paleostinian sources, "some parties are still trying to perturb the latest visit of Abbas in a bid to prevent Fatah Movement from showing a leading position in the Paleostinian file. But its opponents do not expect the Fatah "project" to succeed over internal differences between a large number of its leaders and a series of contradictions despite the attention it receives from Lebanese authorities," according to the daily.

Late in February, heavy festivities rocked Ein el-Hellhole for six consecutive days leaving one civilian killed and four maimed.

The fighting near Leb's southern port city of Sidon has pitted members of Paleostinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement against hardline Islamist groups.

Intermittent fighting first broke out after Fatah pulled out of a joint committee that maintained security in Ein el-Hellhole, but the violence later intensified.

Paleostinian factions meeting at their embassy in Beirut later announced that they had agreed on a ceasefire to end the fighting.

By long-standing convention, Leb's army does not enter Paleostinian refugee camps, where security is managed by joint committees of Paleostinian factions.

In recent years, tensions have risen between Fatah and the Jund al-Sham Islamist group

... the name translates as "Soldiers of the Levant". The Syrian version is a Chechen jihadi group led by Murad Margoshvili (AKA "Moslem Abu Walid al-Shishani") that started in the Kurdish Mountains (Jabal al-Akrad) of northern Latakia and the Jisr Shughour area of Idlib, but moved to the northern Hama countryside to aid rebel allies. The one that has been feuding with Fatah in Lebanon's Ain al Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp is a Sunni group that split off from Osbat al-Nour in 2004....

in the camp.

Link

Arabia

UAE blacklists 82 groups as 'terrorist'

2014-11-16

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The government of the United Arab Emirates formally endorsed on Saturday the designation of 82 organizations, including Egyptâs Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as terror groups, in line with a federal law on combating terrorism.

The list, published by the countryâs state-run WAM news agency, includes the Muslim Brotherhood, the groupâs local and regional affiliates, as well as Al-Qaeda-linked groups operating in different parts of the region.

Several brigades fighting on both sides in the Syrian conflict along with Islamist groups in Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Pakistan, Nigeriaâs Boko Haram as well as Afghanistan's Taliban account for the bulk of the list.

Shiite militants groups also figure in the list, including Shiite Hezbollah in the Gulf states and brigades with the same name in Iraq. Lebanonâs Iranian backed Hezbollah was not blacklisted.

In late August, UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahayan enacted federal law number 7, which mandated the list to be published and circulated by the media to further âtransparencyâ and âincrease awarenessâ of terrorist threats.

The move follows a similar step taken by Saudi Arabia in March.

The groups blacklisted by the UAE were as follows:

1- UAEâs Muslim Brotherhood called Al-Islah
2- UAE terrorist cells
3- Karama organization
4- Uma Parties in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula
5- Al-Qaeda
Finally got around to it...
6- Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
They prefer to be known as The Islamic State or as The Caliphate...
7- Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Formerly the aden-Abyan Islamic Army plus the Lions of the Arabian Peninsula
8- Yemenâs Ansar al-Sharia
... which sez they're not an al-Qaeda affiliate, otherwise they're indistinguishable from al-Qaeda.
9- Muslim Brotherhood, both the organization and movement
I don't think the Moslem Brü can properly be called a terrorist organization; it's more a subversive organization. We saw what happened when they achieved power in Egypt: one man, one vote, one time. Their belief that Islam is the Answer, regardless of the question makes them look foolish, but they are Moslems and they behave like Moslems do when they can't get their way.
10- Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiyya in Egypt
Zawahiri used to be the head of Gamaa al-Islamiya. I think they swore to non-violence to get their members out of jail.
11- Bait al-Maqdis group in Egypt
Formerly just al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, now sworn to the Islamic State
12- Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt group)
I think we've seen these guys once or maybe twice.
13- Majlis Shura Al-Mujahedin Fi Aknaf Bayt Al-Maqdis (Mujahidin Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, or MSC)
14- Yemenâs Houthi movement
Aligned with Iran and with former President-for-Life Saleh.
15- Hezbollah party in Saudi Arabiaâs Hijaz
16- Hezbollah in the Gulf region
17- Al-Qaeda in Iran
I believe this is the "protected" al-Qaeda that the Medes and the Persians keep on a tight leash. If I had a bunch of money I'd do some intensive investigation on this group.
18- Badr organization in Iraq
19- Asaâib Ahl al-Haq, also known as the Khazali Network in Iraq
20- Fath al-Islam in Lebanon
This is our old friend, Fateh al-Islam. Probably they've been folded into al-Nusra or the Caliphate by now.
21- Osbat Al-Ansar or Asbat an-Ansar (League of the Partisans) in Lebanon
I believe Usbat al-Ansar lives in Ein al-Hellhole. They're the place to go when you're on the run. Every once in awhile they shoot one of the local Fatah muckety-mucks.
22- Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
I think AQIM has lost a lot: their debacle in Mali, the ego versus ego contest between Mokhtar versus Droukdel, and the fact that half of them have pledged to the Islamic State.
23- Ansar Al-Sharia in Libya
24- Ansar Al-Sharia in Tunisia
25- Al-Shabab in Somalia
26- Boko Haram in Nigeria
27- Al-Murabitoon brigade in Mali
That's Mokhtar Belmokhtar's mob...
28- Ansar Al-Din movement in Mali
29- Haqani network in Pakistan
30- Lashkar Taiba in Pakistan
31- Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement headquartered in Pakistan
32- Mohammed Army in Pakistan
Jaish e-Muhammad...
33- Mohammed Army in India
34- Indian mujahideen in India/Kashmir
35- The Caucasus Emirate by Chechen militants
36- Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
37- Abu Sayyaf Islamist group in the Philippines
38- Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
Nailed that one. Not a terrorist organization, but fellow travelers.
39- Alleanza Islamic d'Italia or Islamic Alliance in Italy
40- Islamic Association in Finland
41- Islamic Association in Norway
42- Islamic Relief Organization in the UK
43- The Cordoba Foundation in Britain
44- International Islamic Relief Organization belonging to the international Muslim Brotherhood
I think that's the one headed by bin Laden's brother-in-law or son-in-law...
45- Taliban movement in Pakistan
Mullah Omar...
46- Abu Thur al-Fiqari battalion in Syria
47- Al-Tawheed and Iman battalion in Syria
48- The Green Battalion or Al-Khadraa battalion in Syria
49- Al-Tawhid Brigade in Syria
50- Abu Bakr brigade in Syria
51- Talha bin Ubaidallah in Syria
52- Al-Sarim Al-Batar brigade in Syria
53- Abdullah bin Mubarak brigade in Syria
54- Convoys of Martyrs brigade in Syria
55- Abu Omar brigade in Syria
56- Ahrar Shumar or Free Shumars brigade in Syria
57- Hezbollah brigades in Iraq
58- Brigade of Abu Al-Fadl al-Abbas in Syria
59- Brigades of Al-Yom Al-Mawood (Destined Day in Iraq)
60- Battalion of Omar bin Yasir in Syria
61- Ansar Al-Islam group in Iraq
62- Nusra Front in Syira
63- Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham Al Islami (Islamic Movement of the Free Men of the Levant) in Syria
64- Jaish Al-Islam (Islam Army) in Palestine
65- Abdullah Azzam Brigades
I think they're being or have been absorbed by al-Nusra.
66- Kanvaz in Belgrade, Serbia
67- The Muslim American Society (MAS)
68- Union of Muslim Scholars
69- Union of Islamic Organizations in Europe
70- Union of Islamic Organizations of France
71- Muslim Association of Britain (MAB)
72- Islamic Society of Germany
73- Islamic Society in Denmark
74- Islamic Society in Belgium
75- Sariyat Al-Jabal brigade in Syria
76- Al-Shahbaa brigade in Syria
77- Al-QaâQaaâ in Syria
78- Sufian Al-Thawri (Revolutionary Sufian brigade) in Syria
79- Abdulraham brigade in Syria
80- Omar bin Al-Khatab brigade in Syria
81- Al-Shayma brigade in Syria
82- Al-Haq brigade in Syria

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Beirut bombers linked to Iran: expert

2013-11-21

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Lebanese branch of Abdallah Azzam Brigades, which claimed responsibility for two blasts at the Iranian embassy in Beirut on Tuesday, was established by Iranian intelligence services after 2003, a Middle East counter terrorism expert said.

Speaking to Al Arabiya News Channel, Mustafa Alani, a senior advisor and program director in security and terrorism studies at the Gulf Research Center, said the Lebanese branch of Abdullah Azzam Brigades is named Ziad al-Jarrah Battalion.

Al-Jarrah was the Lebanese citizen behind one of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. He was the pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a field in Shanksville, Penn.

Abdullah Azzam Brigades also operated a branch in Gulf Peninsula named Yusuf al-Uyayree Battalion, suspected behind the 2010 attack on a Japanese tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had previously threatened to block the strait if the United States or Israel attacked its nuclear facilities.

Alani, the counter terrorism expert, said the Abdallah Azzam Brigades was originally formed by Saleh al-Qaraawi in 2009 as an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq. It then embraced the previously existing Ziad al-Jarrah Battalion.

Qarawi is a Saudi citizen holds number 43 in the list 85 most-wanted terrorists issued by the Saudi Interior Ministry in 2009.

Qarawi had moved between Iran, Afghanistan and Waziristan, a mountainous region of northeast Pakistan. He was arrested in June 2009 after returning to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan where he was reportedly wounded in a drone strike.

After Qarawi's arrest, Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, took over the Abdullah Azzam Brigades. Majid, a Saudi citizen, is the wanted number 70 in Saudi Arabia's most wanted terrorists.

Majed al-Majed previously worked with Osbat al-Ansar, a terrorist group that operates in Lebanon.

The brigades' name was linked to several operations, including a 2005 attack on two U.S. warships at the port of Aqaba in Jordan, Jordan.

In 2011, and amid a wave of uprisings across the Middle East, Abdullah Azzam Brigades issued a statement urging Saudis to rise up against their monarchy and threatened attacks against the kingdom.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Fatah al-Islam says leader ambushed in Syria

2008-12-11

Following days of speculation and conflicting reports, Lebanon-based Islamist group Fatah al-Islam has announced that its leader had been "captured or killed" by Syrian forces and named his successor, according to a U.S. intelligence monitoring service.
So is this the second or third time he's been killed?
The group said Shaker al-Abssi and two other members of its group were ambushed in Syria while trying to link up with other Islamic militants from Iraq and Afghanistan, SITE Intelligence Group Monitoring Service reported. The three were either captured or killed in the ensuing gunfight with members of the Syrian security forces, said the statement.
Did they bring the little woman around to identify the body? Again?
Abu Mohamad Awad had been named to succeed Abssi at the head of Fatah al-Islam, said the group.
They like me! They really like me!
SITE said the statement, the authenticity of which has still not been confirmed, was posted on an Islamic militant website on Monday.

Conflicting reports have been circulating in the Arab media for over a week concerning the wanted Abssi. Al-Liwaa daily reported earlier this month that he may have headed to Turkey to live with a Lebanese extremist known as Abu Bakr Aqida.The paper added that Abssi was last seen "last week in what is known as the Taware neighborhood of the Ain al-Helweh refugee camp in Sidon," Lebanon.

But An-Nahar newspaper said that another militant group, Osbat al-Ansar>Osbat al-Ansar, had played a role alongside a leading Palestinian figure in hiding Abssi and his aides. It said Lebanese security forces have confirmed information that Abssi was still inside Ain al-Helweh, according to Lebanon's English newspaper The Daily Star.

Fatah al-Islam fought a fierce three-month battle with the Lebanese army last year in the northern Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, which left some 400 people dead, including 168 soldiers. In November, Fatah al-Islam reportedly claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Damascus that left 17 dead in September.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Gunnies kill Usbat al-Ansar member in Ein el-Hellhole

2006-10-08

(KUNA) -- Unknown gunmen shot dead a member of Osbat Al-ansar group inside Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in Southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese and Palestinian security sources Saturday. They sources told KUNA Belal Ali Salloum, 39, was killed inside the Palestinian refugee camp at 3:00 a.m. Salloum was arrested by the Lebanese authorities for three years for carrying out bomb attacks in Sidon. He was released some four years ago.

Around 70,000 people live in Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, the largest among the 12 camps in Lebanon. Ein el-Hilweh is famous with confrontations between Palestinian factions loyal to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and opposition groups.

Link

Middle East

Egyptian Qaeda boomed in Ein el-Hilweh...

2003-03-01

An Egyptian man with purported links to al-Qaida was killed Saturday in a bomb explosion at Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp. The man, an Islamic activist and member of a small extremist Palestinian group, died instantly when the bomb placed in a car detonated outside a small restaurant he owned in the Ein el-Hilweh ~~stench and pestilence~~ camp. Officials first identified the man as Farouk al-Masri, but later said his real name was Mohammed Abdel-Hamid Shanouha, adding that he went by several names.
"What's in a name? A corpse by any other name is still a corpse."
The bomb went off at 5 a.m. as Shanouha, 39, emerged from the Al-Nour mosque, where he prayed each morning, and crossed the street toward his restaurant. Two Palestinian bystanders were wounded and several houses damaged. Palestinian officials said Shanouha belonged to a small Palestinian extremist group called the "Islamic Jihadi Movement" and that he was among Islamic guerrillas who fought Russian troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Sheik Jamal Khattab, a Muslim cleric who heads the Islamic Jihadi Movement and represents various Islamic factions in the Ein el-Hilweh camp, accused Israel's intelligence service Mossad of assassinating al-Masri.
Yep. It had to be them, just like an "Islamic Jihad Movement" has to be headed by a cleric. And a sheikh, too...
"The incident coincided with the passing of an (Israeli) reconnaissance plane, which leads us to believe that the Israeli Mossad is behind the bombing," Khattab told reporters. Several witnesses reported hearing a plane's drone overhead throughout the night and until the bombing. Khattab said the car carrying the bomb came from outside the camp and its driver parked near the mosque Friday evening, claiming he was going to buy cigarettes from a nearby shop, but never returned.
That's the better part of valor, isn't it?

More detail, from Dawn...
The mosque was frequented by members of Osbat al-Ansar, a militant group on Washington's list of "terrorist" organizations suspected of links to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. "The dead man was targeted personally," said Sheikh Jamal Khattab, an Islamist leader in the southern Ain el-Hilweh camp, but he could not say if the man was a member of Osbat al-Ansar. Two other people were also wounded in the blast.

Link

Middle East

Festivities resume in Ain el-Hilweh...

2002-08-18

Islamist groups clashed in Ain El-Hilweh refugee camp on Sunday, camp sources said, in the latest incident since skirmishes last week killed three fighters. Sources said the clash started when fighters of the Islamist Dunniyeh group fired machine guns and hurled hand grenades at members of Usbat al-Ansar, a group suspected to maintain links to the al Qaeda network. According to Reuters, no one was killed or injured in the clash. Sources said fire was exchanged for about 15 minutes before fighters dispersed. Tension has been high at the camp since last month, when Osbat al-Ansar fought with Fatah and other Palestinian factions over their role in turning over a militant wanted by Lebanon.
When all the participants wear black ~~hats~~ turbans, it's kind of fun to just sit back and watch. I'm really disappointed there weren't any deaders...

Link

Middle East

Islamist shoot each other up at Ain el-Hilweh...

2002-08-05

Four people were shot and wounded overnight as members of Islamist groups in Lebanon's Ain el-Hilweh refugee camp clashed over the handover of a suspected militant to Lebanon's army. They gunmen from a splinter faction of the obscure Islamist group Osbat al-Ansar opened fire late on Sunday on members of Hamas whom they suspected of helping Lebanese authorities arrest a man accused of killing three security officers last month.
Think about the statement. That's one hell of a neighborhood, where Hamas represents the forces of lawnorder...
The four were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Palestinian factions handed over Badie Hamadeh, whom Lebanese officials accused of links to Osbat al-Ansar, after he hid in the camp following the death of security officers during an attempt to arrest him in the southern port city of Sidon.
This was three weeks ago. They're still shooting each other up.

I've thought about Bigwig's suggestion for resettling the Paleostinians. I'd say no, thank you. We don't need this kind of stuff.

Link

Middle East

Lebanon Islamists Warn Army, Claim Bomb Attempt

2002-07-23

An Islamist group warned the Lebanese army Monday it would pay dearly for the arrest of a suspected Muslim militant. In a statement, the group, Jamaat an-Nour, also said it was responsible for planting a bomb at a mosque frequented by a cleric who helped in the arrest.
"If we can't have our way, we'll bomb people at random. That's the way we extract bloody revenge. It's our right as Muslims, 'cuz we're a religion of peace..."
The army defused a bomb Saturday at a mosque in Sidon, where Muslim clerics last week handed over Badie Hamadeh, a Lebanese man charged with killing three security officers before taking refuge in a Palestinian refugee camp. Military sources accuse Hamadeh of having ties to Osbat al-Ansar, a Palestinian Islamist group based in the Ain el-Hilweh camp. They said they suspected a member of the group of sheltering the suspect. In its statement, Jamaat an-Nour, thought to have split from Osbat al-Ansar, alluded to the bomb incident as punishment for a cleric who helped in the arrest of Hamadeh, and warned of retribution against the Lebanese army.
Ummm... I don't think I'd like it if the USA took in 350,000 refugees and they started warning of retribution whenever we tried to arrest a murderer or two. I don't think I'd like it at all...
"Jamaat an-Nour considers turning brother Badie Hamadeh over...to be treason, and Saturday night sent its first warning to (Sheikh) Maher Hammoud," it said. "We warn the Lebanese army and all those implicated in this incident (Hamadeh's arrest) that they will pay dearly for their treachery, deception and baseness."
Yup. Go ahead and declare war on an army. Of course, this being Lebanon, they can get away with stuff like that. Maybe they'll be lucky and bring back the good old days, when there was total breakdown of civil society and all a man needed to succeed in life was a gun and maybe a little Kevlar...
Lebanese army posts have been the target of several bomb attacks outside Ain el-Hilweh, the largest of a dozen camps which are home to an estimated 350,000 Palestinians and are effectively under the control of Palestinian factions.

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