Fighting in Lebanon spreads to a 2nd camp

[bemildred]

Source: IHT

BEIRUT: The deadly volley of shelling and sniper fire at the Nahr al Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon took a more serious turn Sunday as fighting broke out between militias at another refugee camp in southern Lebanon, sparking fears that the two-week battle between the Lebanese Army and Islamist militants could be spilling over into other parts of the country.

With heavy fighting continuing for a third straight day at Nahr al Bared, fighting broke out among Palestinian factions and the army at the Ein el Helweh camp near the southern Lebanese town of Sidon on Sunday evening.

Witnesses said one soldier had been killed and two militiamen wounded, but the report could not be confirmed. Ein el Helweh, a sprawling camp packed with over 47,000 refugees, where militias roam the streets armed and ready, has been seen as a flashpoint by security officials here.

Skirmishes between Islamist militias and the army have grown more frequent in recent months as the ranks of the Islamists have begun to swell with fighters, many of whom have come back from Iraq.

Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/03/africa/leb.php

[laststeamtrain]

1. Yep. The summer of hate is getting underway.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2867497

This is a story worth following in & of itself & for what to might lead to...

Thanks for posting.

[ohio2007]

2. This activity is very close to the French UN peacekeepers

How will the Frech quater react ?
whistle past the graveyard while waiting for somebody to get blamed for starting all this ?

To soon to start finger pointing until the usual suspects retaliate



http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3407915,00.html

[bemildred]

4. R. Fisk stated that UNFIL has met with Hizbullah, and Hizbullah has

guaranteed their safety from the Fatah al-Islam types. We may well see the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah fighting side by side to put down these Fatah al-Islam fellows.

[anotherdrew]

6. On May 23 the Arab League basically cut them loose (not a good time to be a fatah militant) n/t

[bemildred]

8. Didn't take long for the shit to hit the fan, did it? nt

[anotherdrew]

3. can anyone give a reason why the Lebanese Army has decided to attack Fatah now?

maybe because they don't expect Shi'a Hezbollah to go defend Sunni Fatah...

well, this is a complicated mess...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_North_Lebanon_conflict

[bemildred]

5. Not really.

The story line is the the FAI types robbed a bank, the authorities went after the robbers, and the FAI fellows retaliated and killed a bunch of soldiers, and it's been off-we-go since then. But it doesn't seem to work as just a crime story, you want to know more about where these guys came from and who armed and trained them and what their agenda is and so on. We used to have this sort of thing here in the USA back in the 1970s, Black Panthers, Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army and so on. This has the same sort of smell, but I have no clue what the back story is.

[anotherdrew]

9. this the same group Hersh says bandar-bush/cheney was funding

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.<8>

Hersh said, "This was a covert operation that 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."<8>

Hezbollah released a statement saying, "We feel that there is someone out there who wants to drag the army to this confrontation and bloody struggle ... to serve well-known projects and aims," and it called for a political solution to the crisis.<15>
... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah_al-Islam

[anotherdrew]

10. and why would they need to do a bank robbery if the saudi's were 'funding' them?

who wants to bet that whole Hersch story was a lie designed to get the arab world pissed at Fatah for taking US money?

and Fatah's been painted as pro-syria for sometime now...

[bemildred]

11. You gotta wonder how Hersh knows all this?

I've heard a couple other stories too, as far as where they come from. That's the thing about Lebanese politics, I think the bullshit is deeper there than anywhere. But either way as black-ops go this looks like a bad case of blowback.

[Kagemusha]

13. I think blowback is likeliest too.

Like, maybe the Saudis were funding them and they had a disagreement and the spigot got cut off so they go rob a bank, and the Lebanese government decides they're not playing the right ballgame anymore and have to be taken out. Except the Lebanese Army is not exactly crack troops and it gets fairly messy. (And the US stops the Lebanese Army from having weapons it fears might be used against Israeli troops too.)

But really, about the only thing we know for sure is that it's a mess.

[anotherdrew]

15. blowback? pro-syrian sunnis getting attacked after being setup, a dream come true for neocons

looks to me like a rare success for the neocons

smacks of 'clean-break' mentality and a clever use of disinfo leaked thru Hersch

with any luck calm heads will soon prevail and the fighting can stop, nobody likes being played as puppets on sting.

who knows what the deal is with the bank robbery, maybe fatah is actually hard up for cash and that was the grain of truth that made this whole op plausible. they may have become too small a fish and everyone would just like to get rid of them.

[Kagemusha]

18. Wait a second, explain to me how the neocons benefit from this, please?

These are Sunni militants who are fighting the Sunni (and to a lesser extent, Christian) government employing a mixed religious, Shiite-heavy army. The Sunni militants are not fighting Hezbollah; they're fighting the government neocons would like to suppress Hezbollah, and failing that, they really seem to have liked the idea of Sunni militants fighting Hezbollah themselves, but that's not happening.

Um but whatever, as I said, all we know for certain is that it's a mess.

[bemildred]

19. I'd like to know how FAI is "pro-syrian" too.

The backers of these fellows, before they were cut off, seem to have been from the "anti-syrian" types.

[Kagemusha]

20. Well that part's easy to answer.

They're pro-Syrian because anyone pro-Syrian is someone everyone in Lebanon, Israel and the US can agree is an enemy so it's OK to pound on them with the Lebanese Army, which is what the government had decided to do in the first place.

The facts are fitted around the policy.

[ohio2007]

7. Bank robbery, $125,000 is missing

where is it now?

[MidwestTransplant]

12. Iraq's biggest export in the comming year will be hardened Jihadists.

[laststeamtrain]

14. Daily Star: Army forces keep up pressure on Fatah al-Islam/More fighting at Ain al-Hilweh

Army forces keep up pressure on Fatah al-Islam
Militants claim to have ammunition 'for a couple of months ... we came prepared'
By Rym Ghazal
Daily Star staff
Monday, June 04, 2007

<snip>

Abu Hureira, Fatah al-Islam's military commander, told The Daily Star that the group has plenty of ammunition.

"Fatah al-Islam can continue fighting for a couple of months," Hureira said. "Don't worry, we came prepared."

The Associated Press quoted Lebanese security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, as saying that Nahr al-Bared had been divided into three zones. The army was controlling one zone, while the militants held another and Palestinian civilians and mainstream militias occupied the third and were refusing to offer sanctuary to the militants, they said.

<snip>

More fighting breaks out at Ain al-Hilweh

<snip>

Although material damage was difficult to assess, The Daily Star saw fires burning in the camp and Palestinian sources said the blazes were at the homes of several Jund al-Sham leaders. Several businesses in the camp also sustained damage during the clashes.

<more>

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=82737

[Eugene]

16. (Monday) Two die as Lebanon clashes spread

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Monday, 4 June 2007, 07:46 GMT 08:46 UK

Two die as Lebanon clashes spread

Two Lebanese soldiers have been killed, as fighting with militants
at Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp continued into a
second day.

The violence in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, near the southern city
of Sidon, is said to involve Jund al-Sham militants.

Meanwhile, clashes with the Fatah al-Islam group at the northern
Nahr al-Bared camp went on during the night.

It is not clear whether the battles are linked, but the two groups
have family ties and ideological similarities.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6717859.stm

[maddezmom]

17. Fighting eases at 2nd Palestinian camp in Lebanon

Fighting eases at 2nd Palestinian camp in Lebanon
04 Jun 2007 09:41:36 GMT

AIN AL-HILWEH, Lebanon, June 4 (Reuters) - Islamist militants killed two Lebanese soldiers at a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Monday in an apparent attempt to relieve pressure on al Qaeda-inspired fighters besieged by the army in the north.

Two fighters of the Sunni militant group Jund al-Sham were also killed in rifle, grenade and mortar exchanges that erupted at an entrance to the big Ain al-Hilweh camp near the southern port city of Sidon, security and military sources said. Witnesses said the fighting at Ain al-Hilweh, started by Jund al-Sham on Sunday night, subsided later on Monday. Three soldiers and two civilians were also wounded.

The clashes were the latest jolt to stability in Lebanon, already shaken by a protracted political crisis pitting the Western-backed government against Syria's Lebanese allies.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0431504.htm

[maddezmom]

21. Palestinians want hardliners out of Lebanon camp

SIDON, Lebanon, June 4 (Reuters) - Parading at night in death shrouds and dealing out beatings for drunkenness, the Jund al-Sham group was unpopular with Palestinians even before they were forced from their homes by its clashes with Lebanese troops.

Palestinians driven from Ain al-Hilweh camp into the nearby city of Sidon in southern Lebanon say they barely speak to members of the hardline Sunni Islamist group, who they described as reclusive. Teenagers described how the hardliners had acted as morality police in the refugee camp.

Mohammad Essam said one of his friends had been beaten for being drunk. "He was lashed 40 times," said Essam, who was sheltering with hundreds at a public building in Sidon, where some had slept on the floor. "We knew of just six or seven of them before the fighting, then we saw more," he said.

With a few dozen Palestinian and Lebanese members, Jund al-Sham has sided with Sunni group Fatah al-Islam, which has been battling the army at Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

At least 114 people have been killed in the north Lebanon fighting since it began on May 20. Two soldiers and two militants were killed on Monday at Ain al-Hilweh, which with 70,000 residents is the largest of 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L04762985.htm

[ohio2007]

23. "..Parading at night... dealing out beatings for drunkenness,"

sounds like the Palestinians also hate these koran thumpers for imposing rules in the camp. I think the Palestinians enjoy certain freedoms in Lebanon few Palestinians elsewhere have if drunken behavior is being observed by the 'allahs eyes' on earth

[bemildred]

24. Sounded like a juvenile gang to me, with delusions of divine sanction.

I sort of wonder how they go in the camp in the first place, most of the on the ground reporting says they are "foreign fighters" of one sort and another.

[ohio2007]

25. These guys don't "look" or fit the 'profile'

the typical "citizen soldier" covers his face with a mask. At least thats the MSM stereotype .

These guys don't, but they do carry the AK 47


Palestinian Fatah fighters patrol a street in Al Rashidiyeh refugee camp in southern Lebanon.


Militants refuse to surrender
Agencies

Beirut: The Al Qaida-inspired militant group battling Lebanese troops at a Palestinian refugee camp said on Saturday it would not surrender to the army or give up its weapons.


snip
http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Lebanon/10129482.html


Looks like the Lebanese troops got the US assult rifles



Tank-led Lebanese troops overran several positions of Al Qaida inspired militants at the Palestinian refugee camp.



..." Every picture tells a story don't it "...

[bemildred]

26. Nice berets.

You do know the difference between "Fatah" and "Fatah al Islam" right? Are you saying those guys with the berets and no beard are Fatah al Islam or Jund al Sham and are beating up drunks at night?

[ohio2007]

27. They don't look Iranian supported Fatah either.

As I said in my post "they don't look or fit the profile."


Unless you have pics of professional Fatah soldier you can post. They are all for show in that pic as when they go into battle,
they prefer to blend in with the population as a general rule.

If they are Iranian backed Fatah,
you know they were supposed to disarm around 20 yrs ago per the UN resoultion.

[bemildred]

22. Militants vow to take fight to Ein Al Hilweh

Beirut: A senior Fatah Al Islam commander yesterday pledged to spread the militant's group battle with the Lebanese army to the already embattled southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ein Al Hilweh.

"Soon there will be an official statement in the name of Fatah Al Islam partisans, and we will start to see an expansion and there will be a similar military situation there ," said Abu Hureira, Fatah Al Islam's deputy commander.

One hundred and eight people have been killed in 16 days of fighting between the army and Islamist group in Lebanon, military and hospital officials said.

http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Lebanon/10130134.html