Word: bilal
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...Bilal Mahmoud - a 24-year-old Islamic militant brandishing a hand grenade to evade arrest, or a peaceful religiously devout Muslim who had forsworn his radical past? Either way, his death last week in a hail of bullets fired by Lebanese police has ignited strong anti-government passions in the impoverished Tebbaneh neighborhood of Tripoli and a backlash of sympathy for a band of Islamic radicals battling Lebanese troops in a Palestinian refugee camp 10 miles to the north...
...Some residents from here have fought American forces in Iraq. Others battled the Lebanese army in a brief but bloody insurrection in the rain-swept Dinnieh mountains east of Tripoli in January 2000. Among them was Bilal Mahmoud, known as Abu Jandal. When Lebanese troops crushed the Dinnieh rebels, Bilal was captured and jailed. He was released in summer 2005 in a general amnesty for the Dinnieh rebels. His family and friends say he returned to the family home in Tebbaneh and spent a quiet life, attending mosque and reading...
...Spray-painted on the stairwell of the run-down apartment block where the Mahmoud family lives are slogans reading "God bless Osama bin Laden", "God bless Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." "He was born naturally religious," said Riad Mahmoud, Bilal's father. "He didn't take part in any fighting. He has been with us since it began last week...
...Lebanese newspapers last week quoted the police as saying that members of Lebanon's paramilitary police had attempted to arrest Bilal but shot him dead as he prepared to throw a hand grenade...
...father, Riad, said that the police "executed" his son in cold blood in front of dozens of eye witnesses. "He had just finished praying at the mosque and was drinking a juice and eating a sandwich," he said. "He was only 24 and they shot him like a dog." Bilal died on the sidewalk of a narrow dirty street of drab apartment blocks on one side and a small garden and beige stone clad mosque on the other. Since his death, the Lebanese army and police apparently have not entered the area, wary of the simmering resentment in this close...