Word: lebanons
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Much remains a mystery about Fatah al-Islam, the Palestinian-led Sunni Muslim fundamentalist faction that sprang up six months ago and is at the center of Lebanon's latest fighting. What is known, however, indicates that the group, based near the northern coastal city of Tripoli, is a product of past Middle East conflict, a manifestation of present unrest in Lebanon and an ominous sign of future turmoil throughout the region...
...fighting continued, it was common to link Fatah al-Islam to the Syrian regime, and to see the group as a tool in the hands of Damascus to foment chaos in Lebanon and head off a U.N. tribunal that may prosecute Syrian officials for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. But there is a longer-term worry that goes beyond any possible Syrian connections-that Fatah al-Islam is one of a group of armed, extremist factions that have been spawned in the triangle of political instability from Baghdad to Gaza to Tripoli. Those groups include Iraqi...
...Fatah al-Islam's roots can loosely be traced to Israel's 1948 war of independence, when thousands of Palestinians fled their homes for a dozen refugee camps in Lebanon. The squalid, overcrowded camps became breeding grounds for the Palestine Liberation Organization's guerrilla groups. After Israel's invasion in 1982, designed to evict the P.L.O. from Lebanon, the Syrian regime launched a campaign of its own against Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization, sponsoring a splinter group that called itself Fatah al-Intifada. That faction, backed by Syrian artillery, drove Arafat out of Tripoli...
...Absi and nine others for an al-Qaeda plot that included the 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman. Although Fatah al-Islam appears to have its origins in conflicts related to Palestine, Iraq and al-Qaeda's global jihad, the group's activities now risk destabilizing Lebanon. The nation is still reeling from last summer's war between Israel and Hizballah and Hizballah's attempts to topple the pro-American Lebanese government headed by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Now it faces a new threat; the Lebanese army launched its attacks in Tripoli following indications that Fatah...
...this brings up the question, are the explosions we are seeing in Gaza and Lebanon a sign that the long-feared Qaeda resurgence is here...