Syria and its Forces in Lebanon – Day 6

After two days of relative quiet the gunfire in Lebanon erupted again yesterday. Thankfully, the Arab countries themselves realize the danger of Syria’s automatons gaining the upper hand and together with the Lebanese Army and American help they are ready to crush Assad’s boys.

Naharnet reports about Fatah-al-Islam preparing for an all out confrontation with the Lebanese Army:

Hooded Fatah al-Islam fighters have fanned through the residential districts of north Lebanon’s Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in preparation for what appears to be a final showdown with the Lebanese army, residents told Naharnet Friday.
Fatima Madhy, who deserted her apartment early in the day and re-settled with relatives south of Beirut, said the militants are “everywhere in the camp. They are occupying residential apartments and setting up sniping nests on rooftops.”

Madhy, 42, said that after taking refuge in the basement with her husband, four children and neighbors, “we went up to our second floor apartment and found three hooded Fatah al-Islam gunmen entrenched in it.”

“We begged them to leave. We told them that if they open fire from our apartment the Lebanese Army would shell it,” Added Madhy, her eyes brimming with tears.

“They wouldn’t listen. One of them who spoke Arabic with a North African accent told us that we better help them in the fight against the American (U.S) Army.”

“We argued that it is the Lebanese army that they are fighting, not the U.S. Army, but they didn’t want to understand. One of them said the Lebanese Government is controlled by the Americans which makes it an enemy government,” she said.

Hizbullah Leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah has accused the majority government of Premier Fouad Saniora of being a U.S.-controlled dummy.

Madhy’s husband, Abdul Karim, a retired Palestinian guerrilla who fought with the mainstream Fatah faction in the 1980s, said Fatah al-Islam fighters are “not Palestinians.”

“They speak a variety of accents: Syrian, Yemeni, Egyptian, Saudi, Moroccan and Algerian. Some of them do not speak Arabic at all.”

“They say they came here to fight the crusaders,” Abdul Karim explained.

Abdul Karim decided to get his family out of the camp “when I found out that those strangers are every where. They have spread across the whole camp.”

To Abdul Karim and two other families who deserted their apartments early Friday, the relative lull prevailing over the situation at present is being used by Fatah al-Islam to “set the stage for the final showdown” with the Lebanese Army.

Haitham Shahadeh, who also fled the camp to safety in the northern town of Tripoli, told Naharnet that Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker Absi “hasn’t been seen for four days. We believe he was killed.”

Reports had said Absi was wounded in the Lebanese Army’s shelling of the Samed Compound which was used as headquarters by Fatah al-Islam.

However, Shahadeh said: “Most probably Absi and his three main deputies were all killed, none of them has been seen in the camp for at least three days.”

The group, according to Shahadeh, is “being led at present by the military commander, known as Abi Hureira.”

Abi Hureira, whose real name is Shehab al-Qadour, is a Lebanese citizens from the northern village of Mishmesh in the Akkar Province.

Abi Hureira, 36, was arrested by the Syrian Army in north Lebanon in the 1990s and spent at least five years in Syrian jails.

Upon his mysterious release from Syrian jail in 1997, Abi Hureira settled in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein al-Hilweh in south Lebanon where he got married and joined the fanatic Osbat al-Ansar movement.

He moved from Ein al-Hilweh to Nahr al-Bared during the war between Hizbullah and Israel last summer to set up the Fatah al-Islam network in north Lebanon.

Shahadeh said Abu Huerira is being aided by a “shoura (legislative) council grouping elderly Arab leaders of Fatah al-Islam.”

This, according to Shahadeh and others from Nahr al-Bared, “supports the belief that Absi and his aides have been killed.”

Abi Hureira, said in a telephone interview with the pan-Arab Al Hayat newspaper that “sleeper cells” in all 12 Palestinian refugee camps and elsewhere in Lebanon were awaiting word for a “violent response.”

He claimed that Fatah al-Islam is “capable of transferring the battle to any spot in Lebanon.”

“We can easily do that,” he told Al Hayat by telephone from Nahr al-Bared.

He said Fatah al-Islam can launch a guerrilla war “which no army can defeat.”

Abi Hureira said Fatah al-Islam members were “highly qualified” warriors with fighting experience outside Lebanon,” adding that he himself enjoys a 21-year combating experience in various countries.

He emphasized that his group has no intentions to attack peacekeepers of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon “as long as they do not hit us.”

Abi Hureira said between 600 to 700 Fatah al-Islam militants were spread across Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, not just in Nahr al-Bared as believed by the Lebanese authorities.

“They are (in a state) of maximum alert,” he said.

The longer it takes for the Lebanese Army to crush these interlopers, the longer they have to receive more weapons and to train. Only swift, decisive action can insure that PM Saniora’s government will keep potential victims to a bare minimum while insuring Lebanese sovereign rights over its territory. Understanstdng this well, France’s foreign minister Bernard Kouchner declared:

“We back the government and the army, let them take their decision. The decision is up to them, and if they take such a decision it would be fair,” he said at a press conference before ending a two-day trip to Lebanon.

But he warned that “the consequences are always difficult to calculate.”

“I hope that if they take this decision, to attack the camp, let this happen after the evacuation of as many civilians as possible, which is absolutely necessary and is already taking place,” he said.

His visit comes at a time when the country’s army and a tiny Islamist militant group are facing off at a refugee camp in the north of the country after three days of fighting that killed at least 78 people.

Since the clashes started on Sunday, more than half of the Nahr al-Bared camp residents have fled the shantytown to seek safe haven in nearby areas.

Kouchner, on his first trip abroad since being appointed less than a week ago, met Prime Minister Fouad Saniora, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and other political and religious officials during his stay in Lebanon.

Japan who barely makes pronouncements on conflicts far its islands also expressed support for Lebanon:

Japan said Friday it stood firmly behind Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Saniora in his showdown with Islamist militants holed up in a refugee camp.

Japan condemned militant groups “which threaten the stability in Lebanon” and said the country’s stability was “indispensable for the peace and stability of the entire Middle East,” a foreign ministry statement said.

Japan “strongly supports the efforts of Prime Minister Saniora and his government to restore public order and security and calls on all parties concerned to cooperate with their efforts,” the statement said.

Saniora has vowed to crush the Al-Qaeda-inspired movement Fatah al-Islam, holed up in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared. Three days of clashes have left 78 people dead.

Saniora was to visit Japan Saturday, which is striving for a greater role in the Middle East, but cancelled the trip indefinitely due to the violence.

But not everyone is so supportive of Lebanon’s legitimate government:

A Gaza-based Palestinian militant group that follows al-Qaida ideology has said it was willing to help terrorists from Fatah al-Islam holed up in the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared.
“We swear…that Fatah al-Islam and its Muslim brothers in Lebanon are not orphans. There are those Muslims in the East and West who will help them to victory,” the Army of Islam said in a statement re>leased on Thursday.

The group, which said it was behind the kidnapping of BBC journalist Alan Johnston in Gaza City on March 12, issued the plea on a website often used by Islamic militants.

“Our Sunni brothers and jihadists, we say to you that what is now happening at Nahr al-Bared is nothing but an example of what will happen to you… so speed to help make your brothers victorious,” said the statement, the authenticity of which could not be immediately verified.

The al-Qaida-inspired Fatah al-Islam has been fighting Lebanese troops in Nahr al-Bared since Sunday. .

Thousands have fled the camp since a truce took hold on Tuesday. But renewed exchanges of gunfire late Thursday shattered the lull. Under a long-standing arrangement, the 12 refugee camps that house about half of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon remain outside the authority of the government, leaving security to armed Palestinian factions.

What provocation will it take for Saniora “The Vacillating One” to retake control of his country’s territory? How long must Lebanon be a hostage to foreign interests? The world is standing behind the legitimate government of Lebanon and The Vacillating One… vacillates. Time is of the essence the longer it takes for decisive action by the government, the more the strength gathered the more bloody the outcome. Throughout history swift decisive action has proven the most benign in its aftermath. Why? Because it is the type of action that lowers the number of victims on both sides and allows for a faster return to normalcy.

Fast action by the Lebanese Forces will also serve as a deterrent to Hizbullah and its Syrio/iranian masters. more importantly a Lebanese force ready to defend its territory against any and all foreigners will make that putrid little maggot, Ahmedinajad, pause and think. This will give the West a slight edge in their negotiations with the Ayatollahs. The result will be a better, more free, more peaceful world.

Chaim