The State of Jihad in Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon

I have long maintained that as long as successive Lebanese governments tolerate heavily armed Palestinian Refugee camps as separate sovereign militias within their midst the Lebanese remain poised on the brink of civil war indefinitely - literally only a few breaths away. These militias act as de facto no-go military zones within an independent sovereign Lebanon and threaten not just the Lebanese but the potential for peace throughout the whole region.

This US News World Report highlights that danger not only to Lebanon independence but to the wider region:

BEIRUT--The name Ain al-Hilweh means "Sweet Spring" in Arabic, but to 70,000 Palestinians it describes a crowded, impoverished refugee camp ringed by Lebanese Army checkpoints and tanks. The four checkpoints, the only ways in and out of the square-mile slum, are deemed necessary because more than 20 armed factions compete for influence in what has always been the largest and toughest Palestinian camp in Lebanon.

It's a conflict zone now on the verge of spilling out into the neighboring Lebanese city of Sidon, as radical jihadists return from wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Iraq imbued with an Islamist extremism that is drawing more recruits and changing the complexion of the once secular Palestinian movement. The camp, say Palestinian and Lebanese officials, has supplied scores of fighters to the Iraq insurgency, particularly the terrorist organization that was headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi.

Islamist powerbase. Sitting in his office in Sidon, a senior Lebanese military intelligence official pores over an aerial map of the camp covered in small stickers that show the general location of militant groups. But the Lebanese Army can't enter the area, where well-armed Palestinian militias of mainstream Fatah, rival Hamas, and several Islamist groups rule the streets and frequently clash in gunfights. And the Army has had to concede an adjacent neighborhood to armed groups of radical Islamists considered aligned with al Qaeda: Jund al-Sham (Army of Greater Syria), a mostly Lebanese group originated by veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and Asbat al-Ansar (League of Partisans), which is mostly Palestinian.

In any Palestinian camp or neighborhood, the walls are adorned with posters depicting "martyrs" of the fight against Israel. But in Asbat's neighborhood, the Iraq battlefield is evident: The main road has been renamed "Martyrs of Fallujah," and the signs glorify men killed fighting alongside Zarqawi or in suicide attacks against U.S. troops or Iraqi Shiite Muslims.

One Lebanese member of Jund al-Sham says that these groups are aligned with al Qaeda in the sense that they share a worldview of Salafism, or return to the most basic principles of Islam, and the need for jihad to free Muslim lands from infidel occupiers. The Iraq war, says Abed al-Jalil (who insisted his real name not be used), helped strengthen the jihadist group in Lebanon, which had been plagued by infighting and constrained by Lebanese and Syrian authorities. "Before, there were Salafists, Takfiris, Wahabbis who all disagreed on minor points and did not unify," he says. "But now, they are one."

By his account, Jalil spent part of the summer in 2004 living, training, and fighting with Zarqawi's fighters in Fallujah. He says he planned to conduct a suicide attack but was sent back to Lebanon because his education made him valuable as a recruiter. "I hope to have the heart to be a martyr," says Jalil, whose story can't be independently verified. "Right now, I am struggling with whether the dawa [preaching] is stronger than the bullet."

Sheik Maher Hammoud, a Salafist cleric in Sidon who preaches in a mosque just outside the camp, explains the need for good Muslims to fight what he regards as the American occupation of Arab lands. While not a member of Asbat, Hammoud has contacts in the group. "The question is not why they would go and fight in Iraq," he says. "It's why they would not go."

According to Hazim Amin, a reporter for the al-Hayat newspaper and an expert on al Qaeda ideology, Lebanon is regarded as a jihadist recruiting ground through groups such as Asbat and Jund. Some Lebanese authorities, citing several recently uncovered plots with al Qaeda-type characteristics, have grown concerned about the ramifications of this for Lebanese security. One military official who dealt with these groups regularly says that Jund al-Sham and Asbat al-Ansar are "mostly the same group and are very, very dangerous men." "[There are] less than 100 Jundis, 300 to 400 Asbat al-Ansar. ... They are tied directly to al Qaeda," he explains. "There is no hierarchy to al Qaeda, though; it's like a McDonald's. ... Everyone wants their own franchise. But they are the same, the same very dangerous mentality."

It would be difficult for Lebanese authorities to crack down, even if so inclined, because of the dense population of the camp and the lack of heavy weaponry in the Lebanese Army. "The Lebanese Army cannot go inside the camp to fight them; it would be a massacre," he concludes.

Beirut, prior to the civil war in 1975 was called the Paris of the Middle East and for good reason. The society the Lebanese were able to create within the borders was without parallel throughout the Middle East. All the qualities that made Lebanon a shining light of the Middle East are still present within Lebanese society, but it is long past the time for the Lebanese to remove the Palestinian noose from their necks. Oddly enough, helping the Lebanese remove this threat from their society never has made it on the neo-con agenda. Read the article here in full.


(H/T Iris Blog)