Word: fatah
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...Palestinians leaving the camp were taking advantage of a cease-fire on Tuesday afternoon in the fighting between the Lebanese army and militants from the Fatah al-Islam faction. The battle had started on Sunday, when militants stormed Lebanese army positions surrounding the camp. Shots rang out there and in Tripoli as Lebanese security forces attempted to arrest suspects who were linked to a bank robbery and were also alleged members of Fatah al-Islam. In the first day's intense gun battles on the streets of Tripoli and in the camp, some 50 people died. The violence spread south...
...Fatah al-Islam, the group battling the army, has dominated much of the news in Lebanon since it first declared its existence late last year, splitting from Fatah al-Intifadeh, a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction that is headquartered in Damascus. Lebanese authorities have accused the group of a bombing in the Christian town of Ain Alaq in February during which three people were killed. They also believe Fatah al-Islam members carried out at least three bank robberies, the latest on Saturday when $120,000 was stolen from a bank in the coastal town of Amioun, south of Tripoli...
...Divining the real identity and agenda of Fatah al-Islam depends on whom you ask. The anti-Syrian March 14 coalition, which forms the backbone of the Lebanese government, believes that the group is linked to al-Qaeda but was planted in Lebanon by Syrian military intelligence to cause instability. "Syrian intelligence has been working with groups like this for 20 years. It's an old practice," says Radwan al-Sayyed, a professor of Islamic studies at the Lebanese University and a speechwriter for Siniora. But others argue that blaming Syria for all Lebanon's problems is the default position...
...Fatah al-Islam is headed by Shaker al-Absi, a veteran Palestinian guerrilla fighter who is thought to have fought American forces in Iraq and was linked to Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed a year ago. In 2004, al-Absi was sentenced to death in absentia by a Jordanian court for the 2002 murder of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman. His group - thought to comprise 200-500 fighters drawn from several Arab countries - has recently begun establishing a presence in other refugee camps in Beirut and south Lebanon. Islamist sources...
...Absi's fighters have proved tenacious foes. On Sunday, the army had to spend all day winkling well-armed militants out of residential buildings in the Zaharieh district of central Tripoli. The men of Fatah al-Islam fired machine guns and hurled grenades at the soldiers, who sought cover behind armored personnel carriers and battered the cramped apartment buildings with rifle and heavy machine-gun fire, ripping chunks of masonry from the walls and filling the air with dust and gun smoke...