In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline: Al-Absi flees, Lebanon requests aid
Background: Fighting starts at el-Bared
Reactions: The United Nations
Opinions: Is Syria behind Islam al-Fatah?
Key Players: Siniora, al-Absi, and Fatah al-Islam
Reference Material: Overviews of Lebanon and its refugee camps
History: Palestinian refugees, civil war, and the Arab-Israeli conflict
Related Links: Rafik Hariri
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Militant Leader Flees as Siege Ends at Lebanese Camp
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Fifteen weeks' fighting that threatened to escalate into civil war concludes with the escape of Shaker al-Absi, the head of Fatah al-Islam and a man wanted for the murder of U.S. Ambassador Lawrence Foley.
30-Second Summary
On September 2, the Lebanese army finally overcame besieged members of Fatah al-Islam, a Palestinian liberation organization sympathetic to the goals of al-Qaeda.
The militants had been holed up in the Nahr el-Bared camp since fighting began there in May. Sporadic gun battles over the following weeks claimed the lives of 164 Lebanese army personnel and 222 militants.
Soon after the fighting ended, the army claimed to have recovered the remains of Fatah al-Islam’s leader, Shaker al-Absi. His wife and other relatives subsequently confirmed that report.
However, on September 10, the Lebanese prosecutor general announced that DNA tests had shown the body was not al-Absi’s. Investigators now believe that the militant leader escaped the camp on September 1.
Al-Absi has been sentenced to death in absentia for the assassination of U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Lawrence Foley in 2002.
The el-Bared siege has been the latest obstacle on the road to the full recovery Lebanon has sought since the end of a 15-year civil war in 1990. It follows on the heels of the severe setbacks of summer 2006, when Israel responded to Hezbollah rocket attacks from the country’s south with air strikes on Lebanese infrastructure.
The militants had been holed up in the Nahr el-Bared camp since fighting began there in May. Sporadic gun battles over the following weeks claimed the lives of 164 Lebanese army personnel and 222 militants.
Soon after the fighting ended, the army claimed to have recovered the remains of Fatah al-Islam’s leader, Shaker al-Absi. His wife and other relatives subsequently confirmed that report.
However, on September 10, the Lebanese prosecutor general announced that DNA tests had shown the body was not al-Absi’s. Investigators now believe that the militant leader escaped the camp on September 1.
Al-Absi has been sentenced to death in absentia for the assassination of U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Lawrence Foley in 2002.
The el-Bared siege has been the latest obstacle on the road to the full recovery Lebanon has sought since the end of a 15-year civil war in 1990. It follows on the heels of the severe setbacks of summer 2006, when Israel responded to Hezbollah rocket attacks from the country’s south with air strikes on Lebanese infrastructure.
Headline: Al-Absi flees, Lebanon requests aid
September 11—Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora appealed to the international community for financial aid to help displaced refugees and rebuild the el-Bared Camp. The fighting has cost the country an estimated $382.5 million. "If we fail to rebuild," Siniora said, "it will not only be tragic, but the dangers will be limitless … the potential threat from violent extremism is against us all."
Source: The International Herald Tribune
Background: Fighting starts at el-Bared
Nahr el-Bared residents say that the militants first started appearing in the camp about ten months before fighting began. Distinguished by their distinctive beards, guns, and intolerant attitudes toward less fundamentalist inhabitants, the militants came in small groups and eventually included Palestinian, Lebanese, Pakistani, Jordanian, Iraqi, Syrian, and Yemeni fighters, says Nahr al-Bared inhabitant Ibrahim Issa Dawoud.
Source: ABC News
May 20—Fighting first broke out before dawn on Sunday May 20th at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. The conflict quickly spread to the nearby city of Tripoli, while in Beirut a bomb exploded near a popular shopping mall, killing one woman and wounding at least ten others.
Source: Boston.com
May 22—The Boston Globe surmised that fighting could escalate from the Nahr el-Bared camp to spark a new Lebanese civil war. Although Fatah al-Islam does not have a broad base of support among Palestinians and is opposed by groups such as Fatah and Hezbollah, the number of civilian killed by the Lebanese army prompted widespread anger among refugees.
Source: The Boston Globe
Reactions: The United Nations
In May, a UN Security Council press release expressed deep concern over the growing violence in Lebanon, calling Fatah al-Islam’s actions “an unacceptable attack on Lebanon’s stability, security and sovereignty.”
Source: UN News Center
Opinions: Is Syria behind Islam al-Fatah?
The deterioration of traditional Palestinian political organizations accounts for the recent growth of militant splinter groups, such as Fatah al-Islam, in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, according to Middle East experts cited by the Washington Post. "There are now so many Palestinian factions speaking and debating and doing nothing for the people [that] you find many local groups, with local roots, who cannot fight Israel because of where they are, but are willing to fight," said Bernard Rougier, author of "Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam Among Palestinians in Lebanon."
Source: The Washington Post
Opinion writer David Schenker argued that the real battle was not between the Lebanese Armed Forces and Fatah al-Islam, but Lebanon and Syria. In his estimation, Syria incited the recent violence in an effort to block Beirut’s push to establish a UN criminal tribunal for the prosecution of Rafik al-Hariri’s assassins. It is widely believed that Syrian officials were behind the killing of the former Lebanese prime minister.
Source: USA Today
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh writes that American aid to the Lebanese government's Sunni faction may be indirectly funding militants, such as Fatah al-Islam. According to Hersh, in its efforts to undermine the predominantly Shiite governments of Syria and Iran, the United States has been dangerously indiscriminate in its support of the Sunni opposition.
Source: The New Yorker
Hersh opines that it’s very unlikely that Syria has been supporting Fatah al-Islam: “The American government keeps on putting out this story that Syria is behind the Fatah group, which is just beyond belief . . . because Syria is a very big supporter, obviously, of Nasrallah [leader of the Shia group Hezbollah] . . . [and] the idea that the Syrians would be sponsoring Sunni jihadist groups . . . is just inconceivable.” Democracy Now provides video and audio coverage of Hersh's interpretation of recent events in Lebanon.
Source: Democracy Now
Writing in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Professor of Islamic history Emmanuel Sivan casts doubt on the claim, made by U.S. journalist Seymour Hersh, that America has been indirectly funding Fatah al-Islam. Sivan argues that Hersh heard the story from only one other journalist, whose only source was a former British intelligence agent who doesn’t speak Arabic. In Sivan's opinion, this is too tenuous link for such a provocative and counterintuitive claim.
Source: Ha'aretz
Key Players: Siniora, al-Absi, and Fatah al-Islam
Shakir al-Abssi, the head of Fatah al-Islam, is wanted for the 2002 murder of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley, who was shot to death in Jordan. Two men were hanged for that crime in 2006, and al-Abssi was sentenced to death in absentia by a Jordanian court, along with five other men.
Source: The BBC
Lebanese President Fouad Siniora "was the right-hand man in business and politics of the slain ex-premier Rafik Hariri for more than 20 years." The BBC profiles the current Lebanese president.
Source: The BBC
Fatah al-Islam emerged in November 2006 when it split from Fatah al-Intifada, an organization based in Lebanon and itself a splinter group of the mainstream Palestinian political party Fatah. The Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank, offers a profile of Fatah al-Islam.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations
Reference Material: Overviews of Lebanon and its refugee camps
Lebanon is on the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and borders on Israel and Syria. As detailed in the CIA fact book, its population of just under 4 million is 59.7 percent Muslim and 39 percent Christian.
Source: The CIA
Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps came into existence in 1948, and now house some 350,000 people. A recent UN report states that the squalid conditions in the camps make them "fertile ground for fundamentalists."
Source: CNN: Lebanon's refugee camps
History: Palestinian refugees, civil war, and the Arab-Israeli conflict
The creation of Israel and the Palestinians
Israel was founded after World War II under the auspices of the United Nations. The Arab states of the Middle East refused to endorse the UN plan for the creation of a Jewish homeland on territory that was part of what was then known as Palestine.
When in 1948 the British mandate to govern Palestine ended, Israel declared independence, and five Arab armies attacked the fledging state. Over 15 months of fighting, Israel repelled the attackers and, in doing so, took more land than was originally apportioned it by the United Nations. Non-Jewish residents fled from both within the original borders of Israel and from the land that had been annexed, becoming the first of the Palestinian refugees.
Israel was founded after World War II under the auspices of the United Nations. The Arab states of the Middle East refused to endorse the UN plan for the creation of a Jewish homeland on territory that was part of what was then known as Palestine.
When in 1948 the British mandate to govern Palestine ended, Israel declared independence, and five Arab armies attacked the fledging state. Over 15 months of fighting, Israel repelled the attackers and, in doing so, took more land than was originally apportioned it by the United Nations. Non-Jewish residents fled from both within the original borders of Israel and from the land that had been annexed, becoming the first of the Palestinian refugees.
The Washington Post carries an interactive guide to the history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Source: The Washington Post
"Of the 860,000 Arabs who had lived in areas of Palestine that became Israel, only 133,000 remained [after 1948]. Some 470,000 moved into refugee camps on the West Bank ... or the Gaza Strip ... The rest dispersed to Lebanon, Syria, and other countries." A Q&A session with Political Science Professor Stephen R. Shalom provides a history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Source: Z Magazine
The PLO, Jordan, and the destabilizing effect of the refugee population
After the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its neighbors, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) set up base in Jordan. The number of Palestinian refugees in Jordan rose, and the government felt threatened by the PLO and feared that its presence might prompt Israel to attack.The PLO was expelled from Jordan in 1971 and moved to Lebanon, where its presence was a catalyst for the civil war in 1975.
After the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its neighbors, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) set up base in Jordan. The number of Palestinian refugees in Jordan rose, and the government felt threatened by the PLO and feared that its presence might prompt Israel to attack.The PLO was expelled from Jordan in 1971 and moved to Lebanon, where its presence was a catalyst for the civil war in 1975.
Since 1948, the influx of displaced Palestinians has influenced Jordan's politics, economy, and society, according to a short history of the Palestinian émigrés in Israel's eastern neighbor written by Géraldine Chatelard. The author presents Jordan's refugee problems as a case study in the impact of migration on national politics.
Source: Migration Information Source
In September 1970, civil war broke out in Jordan when the Jordanian army attacked Palestinian guerrillas in towns throughout the country.
Source: The BBC
Despite a ceasefire signed by the PLO and Jordan later in September, 1970, the Jordanian civil war continued until 1971.
Source: The BBC
The Lebanese Civil War and its aftermath, 1975–1989
The Lebanese Civil War began on the morning of April 13, 1975 with a drive-by shooting that killed four of the congregation at a church in east Beirut. Initially the fighting was between Christian, Muslim, and Palestinian groups, but the conflict grew as Israel and Syria became involved.
The war claimed the lives of 150,000 people, and crippled the Lebanese economy. Beirut, once the "Paris of the Middle East" and a vibrant tourist destination, was left in ruins.
The Lebanese Civil War began on the morning of April 13, 1975 with a drive-by shooting that killed four of the congregation at a church in east Beirut. Initially the fighting was between Christian, Muslim, and Palestinian groups, but the conflict grew as Israel and Syria became involved.
The war claimed the lives of 150,000 people, and crippled the Lebanese economy. Beirut, once the "Paris of the Middle East" and a vibrant tourist destination, was left in ruins.
A timeline for the Lebanese Civil War is illustrated with photographs for each significant event on this blog.
Source: Liberty05.com
The 15-year conflict was, according to the BBC, both a civil and a regional war. It left Lebanon "firmly under Syria's thumb, and with a southern strip of territory occupied by Israel as a buffer zone." Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Syria left in 2005 in the wake of the protests that followed the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Source: The BBC
Israel became involved in the conflict because of the presence of the PLO in southern Lebanon, from where the organization launched attacks on Israel. In turn, the Israeli action encouraged the further involvement of Syria, which feared the spread of Israel's influence northwards. The Lebanese-American Association gives an account of the war, drawing on U.S. historical sources.
Source: The Lebanese–American Association
Related Links: Rafik Hariri
On Monday, May 14th, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora formally asked the UN Security Council to create an international tribunal to prosecute former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s suspected assassins. Siniora’s request came after he had failed to win national support for the tribunal from pro-Syrian and Hezbollah members of parliament. A 2005 investigation implicated Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services in the killing, and led to the arrest of four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals.
Source: The International Herald Tribune
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