Thursday, May 24, 2007

Lebanon rebels represent only Syria

From The Australian, May 24, 2007, by Martin Chulov, Tripoli ...

ABOUT 50 al-Qa'ida-linked insurgents were holed up today in a battered shantytown deep inside a besieged Palestinian refugee camp, vowing to die fighting the surrounding Lebanese army. Lebanon's Defence Minister issued an ultimatum to the militants to surrender or face a military onslaught, as the army reinforced its positions, raising fears of what could be a bloody showdown.

Close to half of the camp's 34,000 inhabitants have fled the fighting that erupted on Sunday as a fragile truce held between Fatah al-Islam and the soldiers ordered to crush them. Most of the remaining residents were expected today to join the exodus ahead of the widely anticipated last stand. "Preparations are seriously underway to end the matter," Defence Minister Elias Murr said in an interview today with the Al-Arabiya television. "The army will not negotiate with a group of terrorists and criminals. Their fate is arrest, and if they resist the army, death."

...Three days of fierce fighting has killed more than 60 militants and soldiers as well as at least 27 civilians.

....The PLO last night suspended a four-decade ban on the Lebanese army entering Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, clearing the way for the army to carry out Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's order to annihilate the remaining rebels. "We have declared that the country is for Lebanon and sovereignty is for Lebanon, and whatever Lebanon decides or considers its higher interests, we support it," said Abbas Ziki, the PLO representative in Lebanon.

...Nahr al-Barad, meaning the Cold River, is one of 12 impoverished Palestinian camps in Lebanon that are home to more than 215,000 out of a total of 400,000 refugees in the country.Fears of large numbers of dead or wounded civilians have threatened to ignite an uprising in other camps, where leaders claim the army has been reckless in its pursuit of the militants.

....Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, have distanced themselves from Fatah al-Islam, which touts itself as a Palestinian liberation movement. Many see it intrinsically linked to the al-Qa'ida worldview with a key goal of toppling the Lebanese Government, which it views as un-Islamic. The group has been accused of acting on the orders of Syrian military intelligence chiefs, who have been widely blamed with destabilising the Government as a means to derail the establishment of a UN tribunal to try the assassins of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Lebanon last night asked the US for $280 million in aid to suppress the uprising and alleged al-Qa'ida-linked attempts to penetrate other Palestinian areas in the country. Western and Lebanese security forces had been monitoring Fatah al-Islam since last November, but had not established the size of the group, or whether it intended to act on its militant Salafi Islamic ideology. In March, fears were raised of an imminent Fatah al-Islam attack against members of the 15,000-strong UNIFIL intervention force in south Lebanon, which was established to prevent renewed fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, who fought a bloody 34-day war last July-August.

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