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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanese soldiers kill man carrying grenade

2008-06-01

SIDON, Lebanon, - Lebanese soldiers shot dead a man carrying a hand grenade outside the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh on Saturday, an army spokesman said. "The man was carrying a hand grenade and we are also investigating whether the belt he was wearing contained an explosives charge," the spokesman said, refusing to provide any further details. The man's body was still at the scene and soldiers prevented journalists and photographers from approaching it, the spokesman said. Security forces told an AFP correspondent at the scene that they would carry out a controlled explosion involving the body. Eyewitnesses said the man was shot close to an army checkpoint in the Taameer Ein el-Hellhole Ein el-Helweh zone, which is controlled by the military, except for a southern part which is considered a bastion of the Islamist group Jund Al-Sham. Who haven't yet been wiped out because ... It was not immediately clear where the man had come from. "Where's he from, Sarge?" "I dunno, Muldoon, somewhere around here, I suppose."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Jund Al Sham militants disband in south Lebanon camp

2007-07-02

The Islamist faction Jund Al Sham that fought a deadly gun-battle with the Lebanese army last month has been dissolved, a Palestinian source with another Islamist group said Sunday. The Usbat Al Ansar source said that 23 members of Jund Al Sham in Ain Al Helweh camp on the outskirts of the port city of Sidon have joined up with Usbat at a meeting late Saturday, while the rest had laid down their weapons. Usbat Al Ansar has detained three other members of the group on suspicion of hurling a grenade at an army checkpoint last week, in an incident that caused no casualties, he said. "Some of them worked for certain intelligence services ... Today, there is nothing called Jund Al Sham," the source said, declining to be named. The reported dissolution of Jund Al Sham comes as the Lebanese army continues a deadly six-week-old showdown with Arab Islamist fighters of Fatah Al Islam in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. On June 4, in an apparent show of solidarity with Fatah Al Islam, Jund Al Sham clashed with the army on the outskirts of Ain Al Helweh, Lebanon's largest camp, in a gunbattle that killed two soldiers and two militants. Under an arrangement dating back almost four decades, the Lebanese army is not permitted to enter the Palestinian camps, where security is the responsibility of Palestinian factions. Jund Al Sham had last week tried to set up sandbag barricades in Ain Al Helweh, but was prevented by mainstream Palestinian forces, another source at the camp said. Most members of Jund Al Sham, a tiny group of about 50 members, many of them on the run, are Lebanese. The Sunni group, which has no clear hierarchy of leader, also includes Palestinians. They fought against the army during an Islamist revolt that broke out on New Year's Eve in 1999 in the predominantly Sunni area of Dinnieh of north Lebanon. The clashes left 45 people dead.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Four killed in clashes at second camp in Lebanon

2007-06-05

Two Lebanese soldiers and two Islamist extremists were killed in overnight clashes near a refugee camp in the southern port city of Sidon, a military spokesman said on Monday. A ceasefire was declared, however, when Palestinian factions held emergency talks with the army command in Sidon to ease tensions. Jund Al Sham, a militant group consisting mainly of Islamist Lebanese extremists, then ceded their positions to gunmen from other Islamist groups, reported Reuters. “The army asked the Palestinian factions to seek a halt to attacks on the army, saying that if they don’t stop, it would act firmly,” said a Palestinian source. There was no demand to hand over militants, he added. Eleven other people were also wounded in the fighting near the northern entrance of Ein Al Helweh, the largest of Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps, said a military spokesman, according to AFP. The fighting had erupted as Lebanese troops continued to battle Islamist militants in another camp, Nahr Al Bared, in a 16-day standoff that has left about 100 people dead. Schools were closed in Sidon on Monday, many shops remained shut and traffic was slow in the city as the army imposed tight security measures, an AFP correspondent said. A mortar shell crashed near the municipality building in Sidon and bombardments could be heard throughout the night. The army sent in more armoured vehicles around the camp after fighting with gunmen from Jund Al Sham. The overnight clashes also wounded six Lebanese soldiers, two civilians and three fighters from Jund Al Sham, according to Lebanese and Palestinian hospital sources. Palestinian factions, who have sole control over security in Ein Al Helweh, were engaging in contacts with Lebanese authorities in order to put an end to the confrontations, local officials told AFP. Jund Al Sham is a small Sunni extremist group based in neighborhoods just outside the northern entrance of Ein Al Helweh, where Islamist groups have gained grounds in the last few years. Jund Al Sham seems to have no clear hierarchy or particular leader and is believed to have about 50 militants armed with assault-rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Its name literally means “Soldiers of Damascus”, but refers to the ancient Islamic terming of Bilad Al Sham that includes present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestinian territories. Its members are mostly Lebanese but it also includes Palestinians, mostly dissidents of the Sunni fundamentalist group Usbat Al Ansar, which was outlawed by the Lebanese authorities in 1995 for murdering a rival cleric that year.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

2 Palestinians die in clash at Ein el-Hellhole

2007-05-08

Two Palestinian fighters were killed and as many injured on Monday in a clash between rival factions at a Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon, security sources said. They said the clashes erupted at Ein el-Hilweh camp after a member of the Muslim militant Jund Al-Shams group opened fire at fighters from Fatah, killing one. Another Fatah member was killed and two other men injured in the fighting that ended after officials from various factions intervened. The Jund Al-Shams is a tiny faction that has been involved in several clashes with Fatah, the largest Palestinian group in Lebanon, home to some 400,000 Palestinian refugees.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Debka sez : Syria’s devious weapon for undermining Siniora – al Qaeda infiltrators

2006-12-04

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert informed the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee Monday, Dec. 4, that Israel does not intend attacking Syria. Like all its neighbors, Israel is bound to be affected by the turmoil in Lebanon, especially if Hizballah’s pro-Syrian coup-by-demonstration succeeds in overthrowing the anti-Syrian government of Fouad Siniora. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Olmert government should be doubly concerned by Bashar Asad’s latest gambit, filtering Al Qaeda operatives from their Syrian sanctuary into Lebanon, there to foment Palestinian support for Hizballah’s drive to topple the government in Beirut. This ploy has surfaced in certain incidents of the past week: On Nov. 28, Omar Abdullah, leader of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Tawhid and Jihad, was shot dead by Syrian border guards on his way to Lebanon with nine forged identity papers in his pocket. Our intelligence sources report that Syrian intelligence staged the incident to signal relevant parties in the Middle East and abroad that al Qaeda is bent on a subversive operation in Lebanon akin to its Iraq venture - and it is in Syria’s power to regulate the threat. The Lebanese media reporting the incident found no other motive for Omar Abdullah’s death since he was a frequent traveler between the two countries and was wont to carry phony documents. A day earlier, Nov. 27, at the Nahr al Bared camp in the northern Lebanese region of Tripoli, an armed Palestinian faction ceremonially changed its name from Fatah-Intifada to Fatah al-Islam. At the ceremony, its members showed off their new Taliban-style beards and said they had come to realize that the only way to achieve Palestinian goals was “by killing all the Jews and their crusader allies.” DEBKAfile’s Lebanese sources report the Tripoli region is under the thumb of Syrian military intelligence and its Sunni and Maronite Catholic sympathizers, who could have - but did not - prevent the ceremony taking place. Then, on Nov. 29, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Ein al Hilwa near Sidon in the south, saw a conference of the heads of the camp’s Jund Al-Sham (picture) factions. Jund Al-Sham, like the Islamic Army of Gaza, is an operational and financial dependant of al Qaeda. They discussed whether to grant entry to Palestinian groups from Syria - and “other Arab factions,” such as “al Qaeda”, “the Islamic Army” and “Fatah al-Islam.” The consensus they reached was that such groups could not be excluded from the Palestinian refugee camps of the south or from Burj al Barajne, Sabra and Chatila near Beirut, because they were already ensconced in the north. In an article published in Dar Al Hayat on Nov. 30, the Lebanese journalist Hassan Haydar asked: “How is it possible for all these armed groups to cross the Syrian-Lebanese border without being spotted by the security apparatus of both sides?” The question was rhetorical. He knows the answer, as do DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources: As we have reported, Syria is arming sympathetic Lebanese factions in readiness for a showdown with anti-Syrian elements in Beirut. Its next step now is to transplant al Qaeda offshoots and affiliates from Syria into Lebanon’s Palestinian camps for three objectives: 1. To remove this incriminating terrorist presence from Syria ahead of a possible thaw in relations with Washington. 2. To radicalize the Palestinians of Lebanon so that in a civil showdown they will fight alongside the pro-Syrian forces. 3. To radicalize the Palestinian people at large, and so disarm and isolate the moderates - not only in Lebanon, but also in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as well. Damascus will of course deny deploying these jihadists at strategic points for destabilizing pro-Western governments and defeating peace diplomacy. But Syria also denies a hand in promoting the violence in Iraq by similar infusions

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Law, order restored to outskirts of US Embassy in Damascus

2006-09-13

(KUNA) -- Law and order was restored to the outskirts of the US Embassy in Damascus, in the aftermath of the bloody terrorist attack targeting it earlier Tuesday, a statement by the Syrian Interior Ministry said. "The attack, which led to the death of three of the attackers and killed wounded a fourth one, also injured a Syrian security officer standing guard at the gate of the embassy as well as a US Embassy security officer together with 11 other people including seven Syrians, two Iraqis ( a man and a woman) and one Chinese national," the statement said. The injured attacker was caught and is now being questioned by the authorities, the statement said. "Big Mahmoud, you may begin the questioning!" "Aaaaaiiiieeee! Rosebud!" "Effendi! I hardly even touched 'im!" "There, there, Big Mahmoud! Don't take it so hard! There'll be another one along!" "[Sniff!] Promise, effendi?" The US Embassy had said that all its staff were safe. The attack took place at a short distance from the Syrian President's residence at Rawda and close to some embassies including the Iraqi and Chinese ones. According to eyewitnesses, three men drove to the embassy's outskirts in two separate cars and started shooting and throwing hand grenades. Uhuh. Brilliant tactics. Syrian authorities have cracked down, in recent years, on fundamentalist groups such as Jund Al-Sham and confiscated arms and ammunition in their possession.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrians kill 5 Jund al-Shams hard boyz?

2005-09-04

Followup to the story Fred posted. Syrian security forces killed five members of an Islamist radical group during a gunbattle in the northwest of the country and discovered a cache of weapons, Syria’s official Sana news agency said yesterday. “The anti-terror squad raided on Friday evening a hideout of a terrorist group belonging to Jund Al Sham in the Hama governorate,” the official Sana news agency said, quoting an Interior Ministry source. “A clash took place and resulted in the killing of all five members of the group.” It said Syrian forces also found an arsenal of weapons, bombs and explosives stashed in the group’s hideout in Jibrin, a village near the city of Hama, scene of an Islamist uprising in the early 1980s that was crushed on the orders of late Syrian President Hafez Al Assad. Those Islamists were mainly affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, which is banned in Syria. “The group was about to execute terrorist actions that seek to destabilise the security and stability of society,” Sana quoted the source as saying. It did not elaborate but Syrian security sources said all of the men killed in the gunbattle that began around 6 pm (1500 GMT) and lasted two to three hours were Syrian. Two Syrian security officers were wounded in the clash, which began when the militants opened fire on Syrian security forces who surrounded the isolated house they were holed up in. “Those inside were alerted to surrender through loudspeakers but they opened fire instead,” one source said, adding that the cell had rented two houses in the area but the other was empty. Ah yes, the old "Come out witcherhandsup" call on the loudspeaker, with predictable results. Syria had been tracking the cell for a week and was checking whether it had any ties to al Qaeda, the sources said. Some terrorism analysts have linked Jund al-Sham, Arabic for Soldiers of the Levant, to al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, although there are several obscure Islamist groups operating in the region under similar names. All just different parts of the elephant. The United States has piled pressure on Syria to seal its long eastern desert border with Iraq to stop militants from crossing to fight U.S. forces there. Syria says it is doing its best to control the frontier but calls on the US and Iraq to do more on their side too. Sure. You won't mind if we take over border security, will you? Damascus has tightened the noose on suspected Islamist militants in recent months, arresting dozens and extraditing 21 to Tunisia and 12 to Saudi Arabia in July. Syria said it killed a Tunisian militant who was among a group trying to cross the border into Lebanon the same month. Two Syrian soldiers were also killed in that clash. In another incident weeks earlier, Syria arrested two militants in a clash in the Qasioun hills on the edge of Damascus and SANA said some members of the “terrorist” group had worked as bodyguards for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria bangs five bad boyz

2005-09-04

Syrian security forces have killed five militants in a clash in central Syria with an Islamist group plotting "terrorist" attacks, the official SANA news agency said yesterday. "The anti-terror squad raided on Friday evening a hide-out of a terrorist group belonging to Jund Al-Sham in the Hama governorate," it said, quoting an Interior Ministry source. "A clash took place and resulted in the killing of all five members of the group," while two Syrian security officers were wounded, it said.

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