Lebanese
Army Lays Siege
To Palestinian Refugee Camp
By Peter Symonds
22 May, 2007
World
Socialist Web
At
least 60 people have died in fierce fighting over the past two days
between Lebanese troops and the Sunni extremist Fatah al-Islam militia
based at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near the northern
city of Tripoli. Security officials say that the dead include 27 soldiers,
15 militants and 24 civilians, but the actual toll could be much higher
as there are no accurate figures for casualties inside the densely populated
camp.
According to Lebanese officials,
the clashes broke out early Sunday after police raided suspected Fatah
al-Islam hideouts in Tripoli, searching for men involved in a bank robbery
the previous day. Fatah al-Islam responded by seizing army posts outside
the Nahr al-Bared camp, resulting in sharp gun battles as troops fought
to retake the positions. Fighting continued yesterday, apart from a
short ceasefire.
The Lebanese army brought
up hundreds of reinforcements, backed by tanks, armoured personnel carriers
and artillery, and has been pounding buildings inside the camp. A Deutsche
Welle article reported that warships were patrolling nearby coastal
waters to completely seal off the area. “It’s a real war
zone, there’s a lot of tank fire and they just destroyed a whole
building with 50mm guns,” one bystander told the British-based
Guardian.
The troops have made no move
to date to enter the refugee camp—entry is forbidden under a 1969
accord between Arab states. But one refugee, Sana Abu, told Al Jazeera
TV: “There are many wounded. We are under siege. There is a shortage
of bread, medicine and electricity. There are children under the rubble.”
Another resident told the BBC by phone: “Really the situation
is so bad because the camp is just one square kilometre and around 40,000
people live in this one kilometre. There are a lot of people injured
and dead.”
The fighting was the bloodiest
since last year’s US-backed Israeli war against the Shiite Hezbollah
militia levelled much of southern Lebanon as well as sections of Beirut
and other cities. The clashes are the worst in Lebanon’s north
since the country’s sectarian civil war of 1975-90.
The government of Prime Minister
Fouad Siniora immediately blamed Syria for the violence, claiming that
Damascus was deliberately creating instability in Lebanon to undermine
UN moves to set up an international court to try suspects in the 2005
killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Siniora declared on
Sunday: “The blows dealt by Fatah al-Islam against the Lebanese
army are a premeditated crime and a dangerous attempt to destabilise
[Lebanon].”
Syria has denied any connection
to Fatah al-Islam and shut two of its border crossings from Lebanon
in response to the fighting. The group’s leader Shaker al-Abssi
was reportedly jailed in 2003 by Damascus for plotting against the Syrian
government. He fled to Lebanon last year after being released and is
currently wanted in Syria on new charges. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid
Moualem told the media: “Our forces have been after them, even
through Interpol. We reject this organisation. It does not serve the
Palestinian cause and it is not after liberating Palestine.”
Fatah al-Islam espouses Islamic
extremism and makes no secret of its sympathy for Al Qaeda, but publicly
denies any organisational link. Abssi was convicted in absentia in Jordan,
along with former Iraqi Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for the
2002 killing of US diplomat Lawrence Foley. Both were sentenced to death.
Abssi told the New York Times in March: “Osama bin Laden does
make the Fatwas [legal pronouncements]. Should his Fatwas follow the
Sunna [Islamic law], we will carry them out.” The group has an
estimated strength of between 150 to 200 fighters.
The Lebanese government blamed
Fatah al-Islam for twin bus bombings in a Christian area outside Beirut
in February. In response, the army strengthened its presence outside
the Nahr al-Bared camp and last month launched a crackdown on Islamic
extremists, further heightening tensions. According to Time magazine,
as many as 200 people in Tripoli and northern Lebanon were detained
by security forces, accused of ties to Al Qaeda, building up weapons
and planning attacks.
It is quite possible that
sections of the Siniora government have deliberately provoked the current
confrontation and blamed Syria in order to refocus international attention
on Lebanon. Last week, Siniora called on the UN to set up the Hariri
tribunal despite the failure of the Lebanese parliament to approve the
measure. At the same time, clashes enable the army to weaken further
Fatah al-Islam and tighten security around Palestinian camps throughout
the country.
The Christian Science Monitor
quoted anti-Syrian telecommunications minister Marwan Hamade saying:
“We have hermetically sealed them inside Nahr al-Bared and we
will use popular and political means and the army to get rid of Fatah
al-Islam.”
According to the London-based
Times, dozens of right-wing supporters of the Future Movement led by
Saad Hariri, the son and political heir of Rafik Hariri, are gathered
outside the refugee camp. Walid Hussein told the newspaper: “We
are here to help the army. We have been carrying ammunition and water
to them.” Others have been egging the army on to demolish the
camp. “We wish the government would destroy the whole camp and
the rest of the camps. Nothing good comes out of the Palestinians,”
Ahmad al-Marooq declared to the New York Times.
There are 12 Palestinian
refugee camps in Lebanon, into which an estimated 350,000 people are
crammed. The refugees, who were driven out of Israel in the late 1940s,
and their descendents live in appalling squalor, with limited rights
to work and a lack of basic services. Lebanon’s former UN ambassador
Khalil Makkawi told CNN: “The situation speaks for itself. Those
camps have become fertile ground for the fundamentalists, the extremists.”
While sections of the Siniora government would undoubtedly like to take
direct control of the camps, such a provocative move would likely plunge
the country back to civil war.
The US connection
The Bush administration immediately
backed the Siniora government. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
declared that the Lebanese army was working in a “legitimate manner”
against “provocations by violent extremists”. He refrained,
however, from directly blaming Syria. White House deputy press secretary
Tony Fratto called for an end to the fighting, saying: “We believe
that all parties should take a step back from violence.”
On the face of it, the US
statements appear uncharacteristically mild. Washington has previously
denounced Syria and Iran for supporting Hezbollah and other “terrorist”
groups inside Lebanon. The Bush administration justifies its neo-colonial
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of waging a global “war
on terror” against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. One cannot, of
course, read too much into brief formal statements, behind which may
lie many political motivations. But in all the media debate about the
backers of Fatah al-Islam, no mention is made of the US connection raised
by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh in his lengthy article “The
Redirection” published in the New Yorker in February.
Hersh provided a detailed
account of the Bush administration’s shift in Middle East strategy
following the US mid-term congressional elections last November. In
a bid to intensify pressure on Iran, Washington engaged in a flurry
of diplomatic moves aimed at securing an alliance of so-called Sunni
states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, to isolate the Shiite
regime in Tehran. Backing for the Siniora government in Lebanon, which
had been seriously weakened by the failed Israeli invasion and widespread
support for Hezbollah, was an important element of the US strategy.
As Hersh pointed out, however,
the new US strategy was not limited to diplomacy, but included covert
backing for Sunni extremist groups against Shiite Hezbollah. The Saudi
monarchy was also closely involved, providing funding through its Sunni
allies in Lebanon. Hersh explained: “American, European and Arab
officials I spoke to told me that the Siniora government and its allies
allowed some of the aid to end up in the hands of emerging Sunni radical
groups in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian
camps in the south. These groups, though small, are seen as a buffer
to Hezbollah; at the same time, their ideological ties are with Al Qaeda.”
Former British intelligence
officer Alastair Crooke pointed in particular to the emergence of Fatah
al-Islam at the Nahr al-Bared camp last year. “The Lebanese government
is opening space for these people to come in. It could be very dangerous...
I was told that within twenty four hours [of forming] they were being
offered weapons and money by people presenting themselves as representatives
of the Lebanese government’s interests—presumably to take
on Hezbollah,” he explained to Hersh.
It cannot be verified whether
such an offer was made. But it is certainly not out of the question
that the US administration, in league with the Siniora government and
the Saudi monarchy, sought to manipulate an Al Qaeda-linked militia
for their own political purposes. After all, the origins of Al Qaeda
lie in the CIA’s massive holy war against the Soviet-backed regime
in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Nor would it be impossible for any one
of the players involved to decide that the danger of another “blowback”
was too high and to turn on the group.
Whatever the case, the US
and its allies in the Middle East are responsible for the destabilisation
of Lebanon and have directly or indirectly contributed to the latest
flare-up of bloody violence at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp.
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