Fatah al-Islam

For the Palestinian movement in Israel and the West Bank, see Fatah.

Fatah al-Islam, (Arabic: فتح الإسلام, English: Conquest of Islam) is a Radical Islamist group that first formed in November 2006. It has been described as a militant jihadist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda.

Origins

Fatah al-Islam is led by a fugitive militant named Shaker al-Abssi, a Palestinian refugee who was born in Jericho in 1955, who was once a pilot with the rank of colonel.

Al-Abssi's first militant activities can be traced to connections he established with a secular Palestinian militant group named Fatah al-Intifada in Libya, after it defected from the umbrella Fateh movement in 1983 . From Libya, al-Abssi reportedly moved to Damascus, where he made close ties with Fatah al-Intifada's number two in command, Abu Khaled al-Omla.

Syrian authorities arrested al-Abssi in 2000 and sentenced him to three years in prison on charges of smuggling weapons and ammunition between Jordan and Syria. The government later released him. He went to Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and fought alongside groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda. He is said to have become friends with a number of Al-Qaeda leaders there.

In 2004 Al-Abssi was sentenced to death in absentia by a Jordanian military court for involvement in the assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was also sentenced to death for the killing of Foley and was thought to have been an associate of Al-Abssi.

He briefly returned to Syria, where he again hooked up with al-Omla who helped him relocate to Lebanon, where he and a group of youth he met in Iraq set themselves up in the headquarters of Fatah Al-Intifada in the village of Helwa in the Western Beqaa in 2005 . In May 2006, Al-Abssi and this small group engaged in armed clashes with Lebanese soldiers that led to the killing of one young Syrian wanted by Damascus for fighting in Iraq.

Syrian intelligence services then summoned al-Omla to ask him about al-Abssi and his group. The investigation unmasked the close coordination between al-Omla and al-Abssi that had been kept from the pro-Damascus Secretary General of Fatah Al-Intifada, Abu Moussa, and by extension, from the Syrian authorities.

Al-Omla then reportedly ordered al-Abssi to leave the Western Beqaa, which is close to the borders with Syria, and head for refugee camps in northern Lebanon.

In November 2006 the Palestinian security committee in Al-Badawi refugee camp in Tripoli handed over two members of al-Abssi's group to Lebanese military intelligence. Al-Abssi was reportedly infuriated and decided to break with Fatah al-Intifada and establish his own group, Fatah al-Islam.

In November 2006 Fatah al-Islam set up a headquarters in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon. The group seized three compounds in the camp that had belonged to the secular Palestinian militant group, Fatah al-Intifada. Al-Abssi then issued a declaration saying he was bringing religion back to the Palestinian cause.

In March 2007 Seymour Hersh, investigative reporter for New Yorker magazine, suggested that the Lebanese government was giving support to Fatah al-Islam, in order to defeat Hezbollah. Independently, Dr. Franklin Lamb, a researcher at the American University of Beirut, a Hezbollah expert and the author of "Hezbollah: A Brief Guide for Beginners", located at the time in Lebanon, makes similar allegations, in more detail. He claims that assistant to Secretary of State, David Welch negotiated with the Saudis and Saad Hariri of the American backed Siniora government to funnel aid to Fatah al-Islam, so that the Sunni group could eventually attack Shiite Hezbollah .

But Michael Young, a writer for Reason Magazine, casts doubts on Seymour Hersh claims .

Membership

The official spokesman for Fatah al-Islam is Abu Salim. Fatah al-Islam supposedly has 150-200 armed fighters in the Nahr el-Bared camp. The group allegedly has about a half dozen Palestinian members. The bulk of its membership is said to made up of Syrians, Saudis, and other Arab Jihadists who had fought in Iraq, as well as approximately 50 Lebanese Sunnis.

The Syrian ambassador said the leaders of the group were mostly Palestinians, Jordanians, or Saudis, and that perhaps a "couple of them" were Syrians.

Al Hayat newspaper reports that Fatah al-Islam has close ties to Syria, and that much of the leadership of Fatah al-Islam is made up of Syrian officers.

Ideology

According to Reuters, Fatah al-Islam's primary goals are to institute Islamic law in Palestinian refugee camps and to target Israel.

Several news organizations have suggested that Fatah al-Islam has connections to al-Qaeda. Some reports even claim Fatah al-Islam is part of the al-Qaeda network. Abssi has stated that the group has no organization ties to al-Qaeda, "but agrees with its aim of fighting infidels." Fatah al-Islam statements have appeared on Islamist Web sites known to publish al-Qaeda statements.

Syria's ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, responding to Lebanese claims that Syria is a sponsor of Fatah al-Islam, told Reuters that several of the organization's members had been jailed for three or four years in Syria for connections to al-Qaeda, and that upon their release they had left the country. Ja'afari also said that, "If they come to Syria, they will be jailed," and that, "They are not fighting on behalf of the Palestinian cause. They are fighting on behalf of al Qaeda.".

On May 23, 2007 the Arab League issued a statement "strongly condemn[ing] the criminal and terrorist acts carried out by the terrorist group known as Fatah al-Islam," adding that the group has "no relation to the Palestinian question or Islam."

In an interview on CNN International's "Your World Today," Seymour Hersh said that according to an agreement between the United States Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, Saudi National Security Adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan, covert funding for the Sunni Fatah al-Islam would be provided by the Saudi regime to counterweight the influence of the Shiite Hezbollah.

Hersh said, "This was a covert operation that [Prince] Bandar ran with us." He also said that when he was in Beirut he "talked to officials who acknowledged the reason they were tolerating the radical jihadist groups was because they were seen as a protection against Hezbollah."

Hezbollah released a statement saying, "We feel that there is someone out there who wants to drag the [Lebanese] army to this confrontation and bloody struggle ... to serve well-known projects and aims," and it called for a political solution to the crisis.

Activities

German train bombings

Main article: 2006 German train bombing

The fourth-highest ranking member of Fatah al-Islam, Saddam el-Hajdib, and his brother Khaled Khair-Eddin el-Hajdib, were among the suspects behind failed bombings on German commuter trains on July 31, 2006. The bombs did not explode due to faulty mechanisms. Saddam el-Hajdib was killed by the Lebanese army in the 2007 conflict between Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese army.

Plot to assassinate anti-Syrian Lebanese officials

On December 7, 2006 Le Monde reported that a top UN official had been informed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) representative in Lebanon, Abbas Zaki, of a plot by Fatah al-Islam to assassinate 36 anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon. PLO security agents later confronted the group, arresting six of them. Four were later released while a Syrian and a Saudi Arabian were handed over to the Lebanese military.

Lebanese authorities have accused the organization of being involved in the February 13, 2007 bombing of two minibuses that killed three people, and injured more than 20 others, in Ain Alaq, Lebanon, and identified four of its members as having confessed to the bombing. They have also stated that the group is a front for Syrian intelligence in Lebanon. Both Fatah al-Islam and the Syrian government denied the collaboration charges.

Conflict with the Lebanese army

Main article: 2007 Lebanon conflict

On May 19, 2007 a police search was mounted for suspects in a bank robbery a day earlier in Amyoun, a town southeast of Tripoli. Gunmen made off with $125,000 in cash in the robbery.

According to Ashraf Rifi, the Lebanese Interior Security Forces chief, the bank robbers were traced to an apartment in Tripoli which turned out to be an office for Fatah al-Islam. The armed militants at the office resisted arrest and a gunbattle ensued. A three-day standoff between security forces and militants at the apartment ended on 23 May, after the last Fatah al-Islam militant at that location blew himself up.

Robert Fisk reported that while some of the group that had robbed the bank were cornered in the apartment block, others had holed up in the Nahr el-Bared camp north of the city. Under a 1969 Arab accord, the Lebanese army may not enter the Palestinian refugee camps.

The militants seized Lebanese army positions at the entrance to the Nahr al-Bared camp, capturing two armored personnel carriers. Security officials also reported that the gunmen had opened fire on roads leading out of the camp to Tripoli, and ambushed a military unit, killing two soldiers.

The attacks by Fatah al-Islam killed at least 27 Lebanese soldiers, 15 Fatah al-Islam militants and 15 civilians, injuring another 27 Lebanese soldiers and over 40 civilians. Lebanese forces fired artillery barrages against militants in the camp.

In response, the Lebanese army brought in reinforcements and on May 20 began a steady barrage of artillery and heavy machine gun fire in an attempt to hit militant positions that Fatah al-Islam had occupied inside the Nahr al-Bared camp.

On May 20, a spokesperson for Fatah made an official statement to the WAFA Palestine News Agency affirming that the "so called Fatah al-Islam" is neither part of, nor linked to, the Fatah organization or the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He further mentioned that this group had launched several attacks against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and called upon Palestinian refugees to "isolate this emerging group".

The PLO representative in Lebanon, Abbas Zaki also met with official bodies in Lebanon to officially inform them that the group is made up of "extremists" and is not linked with Palestinian agenda.

On May 21, Zaki and other PLO officials attempted to negotiate a ceasefire to alleviate the humanitarian suffering in the camp. While the Lebanese army had been sending tank and mortar fire into the camp in pursuit of Fatah al-Islam, some 30,000 civilians were trapped inside, and conditions had rapidly worsened. A handful of the wounded were taken out but it was impossible to get outside help to many others. At least 8 refugees were killed and 60 others wounded.

Palestinian civilians from the refugee camp were finally able to flee the fighting after Fatah al-Islam declared a unilateral truce on May 22, and the exodus continued on May 23. Fatah al-Islam is still inside the camp, and says that if it is attacked, it will fight to the death.

An al Qaeda military official warned the Lebanese government to stop attacks on the Fatah al-Islam cell, or else “we will tear out your hearts with traps and surround your places with explosive canisters, and target all your businesses, beginning with tourism and ending with other rotten industries... We warn you for the last time, and after it there will only be rivers of blood.”

Emirate plot

According to Lebanese and Palestinian sources, Fatah al-Islam had planned to revolt and establish an emirate in the area of Tripoli with the help of Al-Queda members who had fled Iraq. This operation was dubbed "Operation 755". According to Lebanese sources, the plot was uncovered and foiled. Lebanese security forces had found CDs with detailed plans for this plot. Abu-Salim Taha, spokesperson for the Fatah al-Islam denied these charges.

External links

• Fatah al-Islam at the History Commons
• Fatah al-Islam leadership & organization May 23, 2007 Ya Libnan
• Fatah al-Islam Videos