Free Republic

BEIRUT: Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker al-Abssi's wife stood firm on Tuesday that the corpse she saw in Tripoli was the body of her husband, in spite of DNA tests showing the dead man was not Abssi, according to two media reports. "When I first saw him I was shocked by the extent of his wounds, but I knew it was him," Rishdiyeh al-Abssi, 50, told Agence France Presse (AFP) in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "I recognized his face, his white beard, his height and his feet." Late on Monday she told Al-Jazeera by telephone that she had seen distinguishing...

Lebanese troops demolished the apartment of Fatah al-Islam's leader Shaker Abssi in the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared camp after his terrorists killed two Lebanese Red Cross rescuers Monday. Reliable sources told Naharnet Lebanese troops stormed Abssi's apartment in the Noras compound, in the center of Nahr al-Bared, confiscated a large quantity of documents from it and demolished the whole building. This, the sources explained, leaves Abssi's terrorists besieged in the three remaining buildings of the Noras compound. State-run National News Agency identified the two LRC fatalities as Boulos Miimari and Haitham Suleiman. The wounded LRC rescuer was...

Lebanese troops have pierced into the last stronghold of Fatah al-Islam terrorists in the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared fighting Syria's allies with bayonets and daggers. At least five soldiers were "martyred" in the face-to-face confrontation Saturday while 20 terrorists were killed. The daily an-Nahar reported ferocious confrontations in the camp to finish off the Fatah al-Islam gang, headed by Jordanian-Palestinian Shaker al-Abssi. It quoted unnamed security sources as saying fighters from all the factions affiliated with Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime are taking part with Abssi terrorists in confronting the army at Nahr al-Bared. An-Nahar also said...

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...