Wrapped in a black-and-white-chequered Arab headdress, the leader of a new Palestinian Islamist group Fatah al-Islam denied the group had links to al Qaeda or any other organisations and vowed that the group would defend itself.
Chaker al Abssi, the leader of the new group that was fingered earlier by the government for responsibility in a lethal bombing, said his group would respond "harshly and violently to any attacks against them.
Abssi has variously been linked by security officials to Syrian militant groups, to the 2002 assassination of an American diplomat, to al Qaeda in Iraq and to Sunni militants who have fought in Iraq, but al Abssi dismissed the connections in an interview in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
Surrounded by five masked gunmen, al Abssi said that allegations against his group by the Lebanese government and other officials were "all baseless and false." "My group does not have any links with al Qaeda, but whoever fights the enemies of Allah and the occupiers of our land is our brother in Jihad," al Abssi said. Al Abssi came to public notice when Lebanese authorities charged that members of his group had admitted to carrying out the February 13 twin-bus bombings in an area northeast of Beirut. Three people were killed and 20 were wounded.
Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa said that four people had been arrested in connection with the bombing, and that they were Syrian nationals who belonged to a group called Fatah al-Islam. He said the group was connected to the Syrian-based Palestinian group Fatah Uprising and charged it was controlled by Syrian intelligence. Al Abssi disputed the charges, saying that the suspects were not connected to his group and insisting that his group was not connected to any other groups "on earth."
"Fatah-al Islam is not part of any other Islamist group or party and is completely independent," al Abssi said in his office inside the Palestinian camp Naher al Bard. Only his eyes and eyeglasses were visible. "The security forces knew about us since we announced our movement in November, so they can check if these members are from our group, they have our files," he said.
The 51-year-old leader also denied any connection to the bombings. "Our Moslem ideology forbids us from targeting civilians ... We only confront civilians if they attack us," he said. The emergence of the new group inside the refugee camps has stirred concern among Palestinian groups in Lebanon, who said the group was not affiliated with any Palestinian organisations.
Abu al Anian, a Palestinian official and Fatah spokesman in Lebanon, said there is fear that the presence of such a group inside the Palestinian camps could present "a real danger."
He said the different Palestinian factions were meeting to discuss ways "to deal with such a new group." "I can almost confirm that this group has nothing to do with Palestine or the Palestinians. It is most probably part of the planning of regional parties," al Anian said. "We are ready to commit ourselves to any understanding reached between us and our Lebanese brothers on how to deal with this new group inside one of our camps."
According to Palestinian sources inside the Naher al-Bard camp, Abssi's group includes 150 to 200 armed men who have been holed up inside the camp near the northern port city of Triploi since November 2006.
The sources said al Abssi's men include Saudi Nationals, Moroccans, Tunisians, Palestinians and Syrians. They said that Fatah al-Islam had also been establishing contacts with some Islamist groups in northern Lebanon, mostly Sunni fundamentalists from Northern Lebanon, to increase their numbers. According to Lebanese security sources, Al Abssi was born in Palestine and is wanted by the Jordanian authorities for the 2002 assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley.
The sources said that he has links in Syria and used to be a close associate of the late leader of al Qaeda of Mesopotania, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was killed in a US raid in Iraq last year. Abssi strongly denied accusations by Syria that he was jailed in Damascus because of links with al Qaeda.
"I was jailed because I was accused of having planned to carry an operation" in the Syrian Golan Heights, a territory occupied by Israel, the Islamist leader said. Lebanese security sources charged that members of Fatah al-Islam entered Lebanon across the Syrian border and settled in the camp.
According to the sources, the group includes Sunni insurgents who fought against the US occupation in Iraq. The worrying factor for the Lebanese authorities is that the group has emerged as Lebanon is going through its worst political crisis since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, and when political divisions continued to deepen between a western-backed government and the opposition which is headed by the Lebanese Shiite Movement Hezbollah.
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