Free Republic

Damascus, Jan 3 (IANS) Intense clashes were raging since Saturday morning between the Syrian troops backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front militants in Lebanon. According to the anti-government Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), violent clashes flared up in the area of Flaita, in the western part of al-Qalamoun, in Lebanon, Xinhua reported. Meanwhile, al-Mayadeen TV denied reports that the Nusra fighters managed to storm a Hezbollah position in Flaita, adding that the clashes raged on. No reports of losses, however, have yet emerged. Syrian government troops have been fighting rebel groups and militants since...

-excerpt- ...a statement in the name of Abu Sayyaf al-Ansary - described as al Qaeda's commander in Lebanon - said the group had put down roots in Lebanon. -excerpt- Residents say al Qaeda is already calling the shots in some Tripoli neighborhoods and areas of the northern province of Akkar and the Bekaa Valley.

BEIRUT: Terrorist group Al-Qaeda adopted a new organizational approach by granting its cells in Lebanon and the region “full independence” in decision-making and setting targets, according to a report published by As-Safir newspaper on Thursday. The new approach has also given the Al-Qaeda cells sufficient financing independence and freedom of decision with no need to be connected to other arms of the organization.

Military Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that dozens, if not hundreds, of al-Qaeda operative arrived in Lebanon lately. "Those who can be harmed by al-Qaeda operatives are UNIFIL and western interests in Lebanon," Yadlin said referring to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A group calling itself al Qaeda's wing in the Levant vowed to carry out bombings in Lebanon and attacks on Christians unless Beirut pulled its army away from Palestinian refugee camps."We warn you for the last time, after which there will be nothing apart from seas of blood," said a speaker identified as the military leader of the group in a video posted on Friday by a media arm used by Islamist groups including Qaeda in Iraq."What we want is that you order the Christian Lebanese army to pull its men from around all Palestinian camps and...

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Lebanese forces fought Islamic militants with alleged links to al-Qaida in the northern city of Tripoli and an adjacent Palestinian refugee camp early Sunday, causing casualties on both sides, security officials and witnesses said. The fighting between troops surrounding the refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared and fighters from the Fatah Islam militant group began after a gunbattle raged in a neighborhood of Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city, Witnesses said Fatah Islam gunmen seized Lebanese army positions at the entrance to the camp, capturing military vehicles. The army brought in reinforcements and fired on Fatah-Islam positions. The clashes...

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat- Worrying signs emerging from Lebanon about the growth of al Qaeda, have triggered a general unease and anxiety in security and diplomatic circles. The wave of bombings that targeted Beirut and the South and the arrest for several cells whose members have confessed to belonging to al Qaeda, in addition to Abu Musab al Zarqawi claiming responsibility for an attack on Israeli settlements using Katyusha rockets, have all heightened the fear that al Qaeda is seeking a permanent base in Lebanon. Ahmad Fatfat, the Interior Minister, said he had "impressions" that al Qaeda was seeking to increase...

Beirut, 13 Jan. (AKI)- Lebanese security forces have arrested 13 people suspected of being members of the al-Qaeda network. The men - seven Syrians, four Lebanese, one Saudi and one Palestinian - were picked up two weeks ago but authorities only announced their arrest on announced on Friday.

Lebanon's Top al-Qaida Operative Dies By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, Associated Press Writer BEIRUT, Lebanon - The alleged top al-Qaida operative in Lebanon who was captured in a security operation that broke up a terrorist network died of a heart attack Monday, hospital and security officials said. Ismail Mohammed al-Khatib, who was in his early 50s, was hospitalized in the morning after suffering a cardiac arrest, but died from a second attack in the afternoon, said officials at Bahanes Hospital, 18 miles outside Beirut. An Interior Ministry statement said al-Khatib suffered from "a breathing problem" on Sept. 21 and was treated by...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The alleged top al-Qaida operative in Lebanon, who was captured last week in a security operation that broke up a terrorist network, died of a heart attack Monday, hospital and security officials said. Ismail Mohammed al-Khatib was rushed from his prison cell to the Bahanes Hospital, 30 kilometers northeast of Beirut, after suffering a heart attack, but doctors were unable to save his life, hospital officials said. Lebanese security officials confirmed Khatib's death of a heart attack. Khatib was one of two top operatives of al-Qaida organization captured by Lebanese authorities last week along with 10 other...

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Lebanon announced the arrest of the country's top al-Qaida operative and said Wednesday that he and another Lebanese suspect plotted suicide attacks on Western embassies and recruited insurgents to fight in Iraq. Senior security officials said the two, who were arrested Friday with eight accomplices, also planned to assassinate Western diplomats and attack Lebanese security and judicial targets. At least one of the suspects allegedly had contact with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose Tawhid and Jihad group beheaded two American hostages in Iraq this week. Lebanese officials said the arrests were testimony to its...

Syria has, after a short break, returned into Uncle Sam’s crosshairs. The immediate consequences were Israel’s warning to Syria after the Beer Sheba terror attack, and a US diplomatic offensive aimed at forcing Syria to get out of Lebanon. The criticism leveled against IDF CoS Moshe (Bugi) Ye’elon for his remarks regarding Syria were unjustified. He did not make them out of a sense of frustration and incompetence, as the critics implied. Quite the contrary, the remarks were made in full coordination with the US. The attack in Beer Sheba got the limelight, but the really important events this week...

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The U.S. Defense Department is said to be mulling a proposal to expand special operations forces and send them to destroy insurgency strongholds along the Lebanese-Syrian border. U.S. defense sources said the proposal is being examined by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. They said the plan calls for a multi-pronged attack on insurgency strongholds in such countries as Lebanon and Somalia. "The global war on terror is continuing, and it will for the foreseeable future," Rumsfeld, who did not cite future U.S. counter-insurgency targets, said on Tuesday. "As we prosecute the war, we'll need to continue to strengthen,...

BIN LADEN'S PALESTINIANS The Al-Qaeda network in Lebanon and Palestinian Authority The Elite of Al-Qaeda in Lebanon - Munir Maqda with cellular phone at right, Ahmad as-Saavi, with Kalashnikov rifle at left, in Ain-al-Hilwe refugees camp. Imad Fayez Mugnie - the link. Mugnie - from left: photo from "al-Nahar" Lebanon newspaper, from right: from list of terrorists searched by FBI, "armed and very dangerous". One of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, the "head of special security department" and "commander of international operations" of the Hizballa, Imad Mugnie, is responsible for several terrorist attacks against USA and Israel,...

A seething Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon has been infiltrated by al-Qa'eda 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 Esbat Al-Ansar (League of Warriors) faction inside Ain Al-Hilweh for the attack on a television station, describing it as an extension of last month's suicide bombing campaign in Saudi Arabia in which at least 35 people died, including 10 Americans. Security at the camp, a festering square mile of rusting metal and cracked concrete near the southern port of Sidon, was tightened last...

Men deny links to bin Laden A military court sentenced eight suspected members of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network to prison terms of three to 15 years, according to verdicts posted on a court bulletin board Tuesday. The eight were among 22 people 18 of them still at large ­ accused in Lebanon of having links to the network. It was not immediately known if they also had links to another group blamed for a string of bombings on Western targets in Lebanon. The court sentenced Australian-Lebanese citizen Mohammed Ramez Sultan; Abdullah al-Muhtadi and Khaled Minawi, both Lebanese; and Ihab...