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| Syria-Lebanon | |||
| Al-Qa’eda fighters set up base in Ein el-Hellhole | |||
| 2003-06-24 | |||
A seething Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon has been infiltrated by al-Qaeda extremists, according to Lebanese intelligence officials who believe that the terror group was behind a rocket attack on Beirut last week. They blame the fundamentalist Usbat Al-Ansar (League of Warriors) faction inside Ein el-Hilweh for the attack on a television station, describing it as an extension of last month's suicide bombing campaign in Saudi Arabia. Security at the camp, a festering square mile of rusting metal and cracked concrete near the southern port of Sidon, was tightened last week after the attack on Future TV, which is controlled by Lebanon's prime minister, Rafiq Harriri. The rocket attack at 10.30pm last Saturday devasted the television station's newsroom but caused no injuries as no one was on duty at the time. Photographs of the prime minister standing in the wreckage, however, were seen as a symbol of Lebanon's inability to control extremists.
This should be fun, I'll make some popcorn. More than 200 hardened al-Qaeda and Taliban veterans arrived in the camp last year and took control of a district known as Emergency Street after a bitter turf war with Fatah, the movement for the liberation of Palestine, whose leader last week boasted to The Telegraph about orchestrating suicide attacks in Israel.
Who else Al-Masri took control of Usbat after his arrival, transforming it from a Palestinian faction into a radical Muslim organisation. The group's previous leader, Abu Mehjan, a trusted ally of Osama bin Laden, had sent dozens of fighters to training camps in Afghanistan. Relations between the militants and other residents have been strained since Usbat emerged victorious from the battle for territory after Al-Masri's death.
The Taliban version of "Winning hearts and minds". Zain Farhoud, 42, suffered at the hands of Esbat after she went shopping at an American store. "They said my shopping was suspect because I had broken a fatwah to shop at the supermarket," she said. "They insisted on searching my bags. There was a magazine for brides that I had bought for my daughter. When they found that they became enraged... There are many foreigners who have come to this camp in the last one or two years. They are taking the young boys and filling their heads with the glories of martyrdom for Islam." Used up most of the available cannon fodder in Afghanistan Munir Maqdah, the local Fatah leader, is scornful about the "road map" peace efforts being made by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, who is also known as Abu Mazen, and Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority. "As long as there is one piece of Arab land occupied and one refugee outside the country of their birth, the Palestinians have only one weapon that the Americans, Israelis and Abu Mazen cannot deprive them of and that is the martyrdom spirit," he says. Although he was found guilty of being an al-Qa'eda operative by a Jordanian court, Maqdah denies allowing its fighters to establish a base in Ein el-Hilweh. "All lies" However, outsiders get little chance to find out if he is telling the truth. The Lebanese army fears a bloodbath if it enters the camp. In the office of Lebanese intelligence on a hill opposite Ain Al-Hilweh, the resident commander gave out his telephone number, but with a warning. "Don't use it in Ein el-Hilweh," he said. "There's nothing I can do for you there." Civil war, any time now. | |||
| Posted by:Steve |