A New Face of Jihad Vows Attacks on U.S.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Deep in a violent and lawless slum just north of this coastal city, 12 men whose faces were shrouded by scarves drilled with Kalashnikovs.

In unison, they lunged in one direction, turned and lunged in another. “Allah-u akbar,” the men shouted in praise to God as they fired their machine guns into a wall.

The men belong to a new militant Islamic organization called Fatah al Islam, whose leader, a fugitive Palestinian named Shakir al-Abssi, has set up operations in a refugee camp here where he trains fighters and spreads the ideology of Al Qaeda.

He has solid terrorist credentials. A former associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia who was killed last summer, Mr. Abssi was sentenced to death in absentia along with Mr. Zarqawi in the 2002 assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, Laurence Foley. Just four months after arriving here from Syria, Mr. Abssi has a militia that intelligence officials estimate at 150 men and an arsenal of explosives, rockets and even an antiaircraft gun.

During a recent interview with The New York Times, Mr. Abssi displayed his makeshift training facility and his strident message that America needed to be punished for its presence in the Islamic world. “The only way to achieve our rights is by force,” he said. “This is the way America deals with us. So when the Americans feel that their lives and their economy are threatened, they will know that they should leave.”

Mr. Abssi’s organization is the image of what intelligence officials have warned is the re-emergence of Al Qaeda. Shattered after 2001, the organization founded by Osama bin Laden is now reforming as an alliance of small groups around the world that share a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam but have developed...

Speaking of Fatah al Islam, I found this article which is a criticism of Seymour Hersh's recent article of March 5 :

....In his latest New Yorker piece [March 5, 2007], Hersh maintains he has unearthed more dirt on the Bush administration...
...Let's start with Lebanon, where the American and Saudi effort to counter Iran and its allies is in full swing. Today, the U.S. and the United Kingdom, but also much of the international community and the Muslim world, are shoring up the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which has for the past three months been facing a serious challenge to its authority from the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah. We learn from Hersh that, in the context of this struggle against Hezbollah, "representatives of the Lebanese government" have supplied weapons and money to a Palestinian Sunni extremist group called Fatah al-Islam, which allegedly broke off from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah al-Intifada, before moving to North Lebanon. Fatah al-Intifada was created by the Syrian regime in the early 1980s to oppose Yasser Arafat. Hersh also points out that "the largest" of the Sunni groups, Esbat al-Ansar, located in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, in South Lebanon, "has received arms and supplies from Lebanese internal-security forces and militias associated with the Siniora government."
What is Hersh's evidence for these extraordinary statements? Which "militias" is he referring to? In the ongoing Lebanese standoff, Hezbollah has used the term to describe pro-government supporters, without ever substantiating that such militias exist. The Fatah al-Islam story is based entirely on a quote by one Alistair Crooke, a former MI6 agent, who, we learn, "was told" that weapons were offered to the group, "presumably to take on Hezbollah." The passage on Esbat al-Ansar is not even sourced.
The Fatah al-Islam story is instructive, because it shows a recurring flaw in Hersh's reporting, namely his investigative paralysis when it comes to Syria. In articles past, Hersh has acted as a conduit for those defending the post-9/11 intelligence collaboration between the U.S. and Syria, and lamenting the Bush administration's subsequent isolation of Damascus in the run-up to and aftermath of the Iraq invasion. Most Lebanese analysts believe that Fatah al-Islam, far from being aided by the Lebanese government, is in fact a Syrian plant, deployed to Lebanon to be used by the Assad regime to destabilize the country and prevent formal endorsement by the Siniora government of a court to try suspects in the February 2005 assassination of the former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Syria is the main suspect in the crime.
Nowhere does Hersh mention two items that were all over the Beirut media: that the Lebanese authorities have arrested several of the group's members, and that the Lebanese and Palestinian security services have collaborated in opposing Fatah al-Islam in the northern Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr al-Bared and Baddawi. As Tony Badran observes in his Across the Bay blog, the mainstream Palestinian leadership in Lebanon has criticized the entry of such groups into the country, fearing this will provoke tension between Palestinians and the Lebanese state. Fatah al-Islam's leader, Abu Khaled al-Amleh, is said to be under house arrest in Damascus, but for a number of Lebanese analysts who closely follow Palestinian affairs the story is bogus, designed only to provide Syria with plausible deniability.... --------------- "A Muckraker on the Wane? Does the New Yorker actually edit Seymour Hersh?," by Michael Young, March 1, 2007, Reason Online, http://www.reason.com/news/show/118922.html

Speaking of Alistair Crooke:

JUNE 2002 : (GAZA : EU SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDEAST ALISTAIR CROOKE MEETS WITH HAMAS DELEGATION -- See SPAIN, MIGUEL MORATINOS) In June 2002, Alistair Crooke, then security adviser of Miguel Moratinos, then EU special envoy to the Middle East (and currently foreign minister of Spain), met secretly in Gaza with a Hamas delegation headed by the organization’s then-leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. ------------- "Alistair Crooke's Meeting with Sheikh Yassin," By P. David Hornik, FrontPageMagazine.com , April 15, 2005
NOVEMBER 2002 : (IDF CAPTURES TRANSCRIPT OF JUNE 2002 ALISTAIR CROOKE MEETING WITH HAMAS DELEGATION IN GAZA) The veil of secrecy was broken, however, when the Israel Defense Forces seized a transcript of the meeting in November 2002 at the compound of the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security Service in Gaza. The transcript has now been made available by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, based near Tel Aviv.
The meeting sheds light on why Europe finds it so hard to label the likes of Hamas or Hizbullah as terror organizations. Crooke’s groveling behavior makes clearer than ever why Israel seeks to limit European involvement in its conflict or diplomacy with the Arabs; while the terrorists express their animosity toward Israel and America and belief that Europe is their ally.
Along with Yassin, present at the encounter, which was arranged via the Preventive Security Service, were Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi, then a senior Hamas member in Gaza (assassinated by Israel in March 2004 a few weeks after Yassin’s assassination); Sheikh Isma‘il Abu Shanab, then a Hamas political leader in the Palestinian Authority (assassinated in August 2003); and Mahmoud al-Zahar, also a senior Hamas member in Gaza (who survived an assassination attempt a few weeks after Abu Shanab was killed)
Crooke began by explaining: “We are currently in an extremely grave situation. Europe doesn’t know what President Bush is going to say in his speech to the Middle East. . . . There are people in the American administration like [Secretary of State] Powell, Armitage [Powell’s deputy], and George Tenet [then director of the CIA], who believe that progress is impossible without a political horizon, and there are people in the Pentagon opposed to any serious American involvement. . . . I would like to hear your opinion and position [because] Hamas is close to people on the ground [and] is an important political factor [, and] we are . . . currently entering a difficult time . . . in the entire region. The main problem is the Israeli occupation.” ...--------- "Alistair Crooke's Meeting with Sheikh Yassin," By P. David Hornik, FrontPageMagazine.com , April 15, 2005

Crook was recalled:

2003 : (ALISTAIR CROOKE IS RECALLED FROM JERUSALEM BY THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE) The first time Alistair Crooke burst upon public consciousness was in 2003. Crooke, who had been an MI6 agent for 30 years and was then assigned as a security adviser to the EU's special envoy to the Middle East, Miguel Moratinos, was recalled from Jerusalem by the British Foreign Office against his will. He had been involved in repeated attempts to draw Hamas, Islamic jihad and other terrorist groups into negotiations.-------- April 19, 2005 The crooked response to terror http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001143.html as retrieved on Jan 21, 2007 10:30:50 GMT.

What's this? Some sort of rogue diplomacy?

MARCH 2005 : (ALISTAIR CROOKE ORGANIZES ANOTHER SECRET MEETING WITH HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH, EMB, JAMAAT AL ISLAMY AND "SOME AMERICANS") the Sunday Times [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1543330,00.html] reported that Mr Crooke had organised another secret meeting, this time between Hamas, Hezbollah, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Pakistan’s Jamiat-i-Islami and -- wait for it -- the Americans. ------------- April 19, 2005 The crooked response to terror http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001143.html as retrieved on Jan 21, 2007 10:30:50 GMT.

Americans? Who would participate in this?

IN an underground car park in the centre of Beirut, a bald man emerged from his Mercedes, surrounded by a phalanx of armed bodyguards.
As deputy leader of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, Musa Abu Marzouk is a potential target for assassination by Israel. Yet there to greet him last week was Alistair Crooke, a veteran of nearly 30 years with MI6 and until recently a European Union negotiator with the Palestinians.
As they made their way upstairs, they were joined by several Americans, some of them former members of the CIA and others with links to the US administration. They had gathered in the Lebanese capital for an initiative launched by Crooke: the first talks for more than 10 years between senior Americans and radical groups denounced as terrorists by Washington.
....Among the US delegates was Frederic Hof, staff director of a 2001 commission on the Palestinian intifada led by George Mitchell, a former senator. They also included Bobby Muller, a Vietnam veteran and joint winner of the 1997 Nobel peace prize for his campaign against landmines.
Israel was not slow to condemn the meeting, accusing the American delegates of “extreme naivety” in imagining that they could draw groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah on to a peaceful path. “It does no good to appease or negotiate with such terrorists,” a government spokesman said.
Crooke said the Americans were there to listen and not to give advice, and emphasised that they did not represent “anyone but themselves”. The results of the two-day meeting would be passed to the Bush administration, he said. ...------------- "Ex-MI6 man starts US-Hamas talks," by Stephen Grey in Beirut, From The Sunday Times [UK] March 27, 2005 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article438334.ece

Hmm . Frederic Hof & Bobby Muller... who are they?

* Frederic Hof, a partner in Armitage Associates L.C., left government in 1993 as a member of the Senior Executive Service of the United States. ... www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/67line.html
and
* Bobby Muller is the President of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. ... Raised in a New York City suburb, Bobby Muller's commission with the US ... www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/AuthorBiography.aspx?AuthorId=426 - 61k -

Alastair Crooke, who spent nearly thirty years in MI6, the British intelligence service, and now works for Conflicts Forum, a think tank in Beirut, told me, “The Lebanese government is opening space for these people to come in. It could be very dangerous.” Crooke said that one Sunni extremist group, Fatah al-Islam, had splintered from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah al-Intifada, in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, in northern Lebanon. Its membership at the time was less than two hundred. “I was told that within twenty-four hours they were being offered weapons and money by people presenting themselves as representatives of the Lebanese government’s interests-presumably to take on Hezbollah,” Crooke said.

(excerpt from Hersh)

Thursday, November 30, 2006

PLO warns of new militant influx

About 200 Arab militants arrived recently in Lebanon and have set up an Islamic grouping at a Palestinian refugee camp in the North, a senior official of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said Wednesday. "About 200 armed elements came to Lebanon over several phases," Khaled Aref said.

He said the militants first joined the Damascus-based "Fatah-Intifada in Lebanon, but a few days ago, they announced their rupture at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon."

"They declared that they have formed a new movement called Fatah al-Islam," he said, adding that the militants were Palestinians, Lebanese and a number of other Arabs.
"We don't know their real allegiance," he said, without revealing the countries where the militants came from.

A statement from the pro-Syrian Fatah-Intifada on Wednesday said "Fatah-Islam has no links with Fatah-Intifada."
It said Fatah-Islam was headed by Shaker Issa, a former Fatah-Intifada official "who has been expelled a while ago."
Local daily Al-Mustaqbal said Wednesday that Lebanese authorities had detained two members of the group, Syrian Hussam Mohammad Siyam, known as Abu Mohammad al-Suri, and Saudi-Syrian Mohammad Saleh Salem.
They were held after "a recent incident" at the Nahr al-Bared camp, said the paper, confirming that they were part of the group of 200 militants.
Al-Mustaqbal, which is owned by the Hariri family, said the militants "are part of a terrorist plot by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad aiming to assassinate 36 anti-Syrian Lebanese figures."
The news came a day after a military leader of a militant Islamist group blew himself up near a Syrian-Lebanese border crossing, wounding two Syrian police officers, officials said. Syrian Omar Hamra, 28, was the military commander of Al-Tawheed Wal-Jihad, one of several militant organizations pursued by Damascus, they said.
The incident took place at 1:45 p.m. on the Syrian side of the Jdaidet Yabous crossing point with Lebanon.

"He was trying to cross the border with false documents. He shot at security forces with a pistol, tried to escape and then blew himself up with an explosive belt," the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said.

Commenting on the incident, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) accused the Syrian regime of "preparing the scenario of Tuesday's attack in order to perpetrate attacks inside and outside Palestinian camps."
In a statement on Wednesday, the PSP warned of "Syrian attempts to instigate chaos in the Lebanese arena."
Deputy Speaker Farid Makari urged the Arab League and the UN Security Council to look into "Syria's plans to assassinate 36 Lebanese figures."
Makari said in a statement that "the Syrian regime, which is suspected of killing former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, is determined to continue its terrorist attack against Lebanon."
"It is a matter of life or death for the Lebanese," he added.
"I urge the Arab League and the Security Council to look into the issue in order to preserve the country's security and assist with the implementation of international resolutions," Makari said.
Meanwhile, a leading figure in hard-line Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia told AFP on Wednesday that his fighters had not received training from Hizbullah in Lebanon or iran.
Sahib al-Ameri, secretary general of Sadr's Najaf-based Martyrs' Foundation, a religious body linked to the Sadr movement, denied reports from US intelligence officials that Hizbullah officials had been training fellow Shiites in Iraq.
"We confirm that the only relationship we have with Hizbullah is a religious one," he said. "We emphasize that we didn't send anyone from the militia to Lebanon and no one from Hizbullah came here to train the Mehdi Army."
Ameri said they were ready to back up this assertion with hard evidence and suggested that their accusers be ready to do the same.
On Tuesday, a US intelligence official claimed that 1,000-2,000 Shiite fighters had been trained in Lebanon. - Agencies

http://unipal.blogspot.com/2006/11/lebanon-plo-warns-of-new-militant.html

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