Mideast Militants Gain Footholds

Mideast Militants Gain Footholds

Lebanon Standoff Shows Spread Of al Qaeda-Style Extremism

By Bill Spindle and Cam Simpson

The standoff in Lebanon between a group of armed extremists and the Lebanese military, now in its second week, vividly shows how political turbulence in the Middle East has helped a new breed of al Qaeda-style militants gain footholds where they had rarely been active on such a scale.

In Lebanon, the Fatah Islam militant group now holed up inside a Palestinian refugee camp has capitalized on the crosscurrents of conflict in the region -- from Iraq to Lebanon and the Palestinian territories -- to recruit followers, cultivate support and establish bases of operation. Similar groups are doing the same from the Sinai Desert to the Gaza Strip and Jordan.

Shakir al-Abssi, the leader of Fatah Islam in Lebanon, is wanted in Jordan for allegedly helping to assassinate a U.S. diplomat in 2002, and was released from a Syrian jail last year. He established a base in northern Lebanon under the nose of a U.S.-friendly government, then attracted hundreds of fighters from Lebanon and as far away as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Morocco. Dozens of them have been hardened in Iraq, according to government and security officials, refugees from the camp where the group was based and community leaders.

Now the siege inside the camp threatens Lebanon's political stability.

Yesterday, the Lebanese government continued trying to broker a peaceful end to the showdown after it received an emergency shipment of military hardware from the U.S. to equip Lebanese soldiers for a final confrontation. At least 30 Lebanese soldiers and intelligence officials have been killed so far.

The expanding activities of dozens of groups such as Fatah Islam across the region have alarmed traditional powers, from the Israeli government to establishment Muslim religious leaders. "Every day a new movement is born. This presence is an expansion of the al Qaeda movement," said Fathi Yakan, a Tripoli cleric.

Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs, although they disagree on much, have grown deeply concerned as they have watched the spread of al Qaeda-inspired militants in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, as well as in Jordan and the Egyptian-controlled Sinai Desert. Last week, a militant faction linked to one of the largest and most powerful clans in Gaza issued a statement pledging support to the leader of Fatah Islam and denouncing Lebanese Shiite Muslim groups in language echoing al Qaeda rhetoric.

The statement followed a string of violent activities by shadowy organizations in Gaza, including firebombings of Internet cafés, libraries, cultural centers and other businesses and organizations denounced by these extremists as impure or potentially corrupting. Two weeks ago, extremists rallied against a children's festival held in an elementary school run by the United Nations, denouncing the event as anti-Islamic. A melee erupted, the school was bombed, and a gunfight ensued when protesters tried to enter by force.

"These ideas... are endangering the whole situation in the region," said Jabril Rajoub, the chief security adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, adding that the spread of al Qaeda's ideology in the Palestinian territories "should make every Palestinian worry."

Al Qaeda-style cells also have been cracked in Jordan, where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, perhaps the most notorious of the new al Qaeda militants, became radicalized. He led some of the most violent sectarian assaults inside Iraq before U.S. forces killed him there nearly a year ago. Jordanian authorities also have alleged that Mr. Zarqawi plotted with Mr. Abssi, the man leading the militants holed up near Tripoli.

Mr. Abssi, a Palestinian who was trained to fly Soviet fighter jets, is a charismatic figure who once was a diehard Marxist, says Abd al-Fattah Ghanem, a former member of a previous group to which Mr. Abssi belonged.

In 2001 and 2002, during a visit to Damascus, Syria, Mr. Ghanem says he noticed a change in Mr. Abssi. "He started to become more religious, in the way he spoke and in every part of his life," Mr. Ghanem recalls.

Amid the rise of the terrorist group al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, he says, Mr. Abssi also was becoming increasingly frustrated with what he saw as a lack of progress by Palestinian militant groups based in Syria.

Another key event in Mr. Abssi's recent evolution, according to Mr. Ghanem, appears to have been Mr. Abssi's incarceration by the Syrian government, which says it jailed the militant leader for three years beginning in 2003. The Syrians haven't said precisely why he was jailed, but Lebanese intelligence officials say they believe it was to stop him from recruiting militants to go to Iraq as the U.S. government pressured the Syrians to stem the flow of foreign insurgents.

After leaving Syrian custody, Mr. Abssi went across the border to Lebanon and assembled a group of extremists who likely had been fighting in Iraq, Lebanese officials say.

After a clash with residents in one Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli, the group moved into the Nahr el-Bared camp. The camps are run by the residents as enclaves outside the control of the Lebanese authorities.

The group members kept mostly to themselves, living and training on the outskirts of the camp. Many appeared to be from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia and Syria, residents said. While the fighters' goals of challenging Israel and the U.S. resonated with many, camp residents were also frightened of them and worried they would cause problems. "They're extremely militant. We asked them to leave," said Ahmad Yassin, a 47-year-old resident who fled with his family during a pause in the recent siege.

But the group did make inroads, with a few residents even agreeing to marry group members, Lebanese officials and camp residents say.

Lebanese government officials, who have been aware of the group since December, say they were observing members but couldn't root them out of the camp because of longstanding agreements with Palestinian factions not to enter the camps.

Some of the group's activities outside the camp have convinced Lebanese government officials that Mr. Abssi had another agenda: stirring up trouble in Lebanon at the behest of Syria, especially as the U.N. Security Council considers setting up a tribunal to investigate the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Syria says it has nothing to do with the group's activities, and Syrian officials say their jailing of Mr. Abssi is evidence they don't support his activities. They deny all allegations that they were involved in Mr. Hariri's death.

--Jay Solomon in Washington contributed to this article.