Lebanon now a frontline for radical Islam

BEIRUT — A call by al-Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri to flood Lebanon with foreign Islamic extremists appears to have been heard, according to analysts monitoring jihadist groups here.

Last year during the 34-day war between Israel and the Shiite Hezbollah, Osama bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy exhorted Muslims to “support the mujahedeen” and to “transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine with the aid of Allah.”

Since 2003, anti-American insurgents have been coming and going between Lebanon and Iraq, Lebanese and foreign analysts say. They use Lebanon as a base for rest and recuperation and to train.

Last year after the July to August war, a previously unknown organization calling itself Fatah al-Islam announced its presence in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

Grouping radical Lebanese Sunni Muslims, veterans of the Iraq insurgency and foreign extremists, it espoused views similar to those of al-Qaeda.

Since May 20 this year, Fatah al-Islam fighters have been under siege by the Lebanese Army at the refugee camp in a continuing standoff that has so far killed at least 157 persons, including 80 soldiers and more than 55 Islamists.

The Lebanese authorities and foreign analysts based in Beirut say the Nahr al-Bared siege is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Al-Qaeda is present in Lebanon,” Defense Minister Elias Murr has said. “There are terrorist cells ready to strike and there are threats of new attacks.”

Overnight on Saturday, security forces raided the apartment of an Islamist in the northern port city of Tripoli, sparking a firefight with Fatah al-Islam that resulted in the deaths of 10 persons including six Islamists.

“Nahr al-Bared could make things worse,” said one Western diplomat in Beirut who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.

“Ninety percent of Lebanese support their Army, but an active minority will be susceptible to radical propaganda. On the Internet, they call the Christian head of state the ‘crusader general,’ and the impact of pictures of US planes with cargos of weapons at Beirut airport has been devastating.”

Washington supplied military equipment to Lebanon to help the Army in its battle against the Islamists holed up inside Nahr al-Bared.

A rumor is also circulating among jihadist Internet forums that ships from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon patrolling the coast after last year’s war have fired on Nahr al-Bared.

“It’s false, of course,” the diplomat said. “But if enough people believe it that doesn’t matter — the effect is the same.”

In Tripoli, a man so close to local Sunni radicals that he did not want to be identified told AFP that among the militants in Nahr al-Bared are some who fought against the Army in Denniyeh.

In December 1999, Sunni fighters battled the Army in that mountainous region east of Tripoli. Thirty persons were killed, among them 11 soldiers and 15 militants.

“I know that Fatah al-Islam has cells in Tripoli. They are keeping a low profile so they are not discovered. They are being monitored, but they are still at liberty. What are they planning exactly?” he said.

“From now on, the military will try to prevent the militants from basing themselves inside secure areas such as some Palestinian refugee camps. Drain the water to expose the fish. There may be isolated cells inside.”

By longstanding convention, the Lebanese Army does not enter the 12 official Palestinian refugee camps in the country, leaving interior security to Palestinian factions.

Commentator Elias Hanna, another retired general, told AFP that “the Army gave a deterrent example in Nahr al-Bared for other groups” of extremists.

“It was a good base, close to the Syrian border, easy to manipulate for Damascus intelligence. It’s not going to be so easy in other camps, where Palestine Liberation Organization influence is stronger.”

According to the Western diplomat, “Lebanon is no longer a base in the rear — it is the frontline. The seed has been planted.

“Nahr al-Bared will radicalize some groups and enable their plans to take root. And if the Fatah al-Islam leaders never come out, they will become legends, new Zarqawis,” he said, referring to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the former head of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed by a US air strike last year. AFP

Special "Thanks" goes to --- All those libs. who cheered when Huzbullah butchers had their way in their use of their civilians as shields to tarnish Israel in 2006.

Islsam is the frontline for radical Islamics. Most people realize by now that the terrorist war is a war between Islam and the civilized world.

So cut the nonsense about “extremeist” Muslims.

Tragic. After Syria was finally thrown out of Lebanon, the election in 2005 was so hopeful. Of 128 parliamentary seats, only 35 were won by Hezbollah. A million people flooded the streets of Beirut to celebrate.

That was only two years ago. How could the Islamofascists have made such headway in such a short time? Sorry, but I'm seeing a huge failure of diplomacy . We needed to be in there propping up the new government with everything we had.

The picture you have posted says it all. A huge mosque hiding to its left a smaller Saint George Cathedral. You could not see the Cathedral because it is also hidden by the large yellowish commercial center.

Also read this:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=83313

It had been cooking in the decision making kitchen of the government for more than 6 months, the same government you “need to prop up”. Sure, the government then retracted, imploring an innocent error............. Message bluntly sent and well received.

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