Interview: As'ad Abukhalil on the Nahr al-Bared siege

I find that Abukhalil of Angry Arab does a good job of teasing out the issues in the recent conflict in Lebanon. I also completely agree--some (most) in Lebanon denigrate and dehumanize Palestinians, as does the rest of the world. The collateral damage we are seeing are civilian lives, and I don't care if they are chasing out wahaabis from our country, we shouldn't resort to an American-style form of aggression.

This whole incident reeks of conspiracy.

AH Dabaja

Interview: As'ad Abukhalil on the Nahr al-Bared siege
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Lebanon, 24 May 2007

Thousands of Palestinian refugees are fleeing from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon as five days of fighting by the Lebanese army and a militant group known as Fath al-Islam has left dozens of soldiers and fighters and an unknown number of civilians dead. As the situation of these Palestinian refugees worsens, 59 years after they were first expelled from their homeland into Lebanon, the world looks on in silence. Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah spoke with As'ad Abukhalil, the creator of the Angry Arab News Service blog. Abukhalil explained the origins of Fath al-Islam, the events that led to the violence and what it means for Lebanon and the region.

EI: What is Fath al Islam?

ABUKHALIL: We hadn't heard of Fath al-Islam prior to late last year. There have been reports over the last two years especially after the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon of a variety of extremist militant groups who are sprouting throughout the refugee camps of Lebanon, and elsewhere outside of the camps especially in northern Lebanon.

Some of the reports have been filled with sensationalism and sometimes groups that the government were complaining about turned out to have been funded by the Hariri family, for example Asbat al-Ansar and Jund as-Sham in Ain al Hilweh refugee camp, some of whose members later joined Fath al-Islam.

Fath al-Islam is clearly or at least predominantly a non-Palestinian organization. Based on interviews with their leaders that I have seen on television or in print in the last few months we can discern the ideological shape of the organization. They are extremist Sunni fundamentalists that have these general grandiose fundamentalist goals that only appeal to the margins of the margins of Islamic fundamentalist organizations. They denied links with al-Qaida yet they speak with the same rhetoric and they do not hide their sympathy if not affinity with al-Qaida.

EI: Is there any evidence that the Hariri family funded Fath al-Islam?

ABUKHALIL: We don't have evidence that the Hariri family did specifically fund Fath al-Islam. But that still allows for two possibilities. We know from Afghanistan the factor of blowback. Sometimes patrons may fund a client and, over a period of time the client turns against the patron. So the possibility exists, but I do not know of any evidence that Hariri funded directly that particular organization. What we know for a fact is that over the last several years, since 2000, and specifically since 2005 during the parliamentary elections, the Hariri family spent lavishly, especially in northern Lebanon to recruit among the extremist, fundamentalist Sunni organizations.

Some of the people in Fath al-Islam who are fighting now were released in an unprecedented amnesty in 2005 insisted on by the Hariri family because they wanted to win favor among the Sunni fundamentalist organizations in Tripoli. So it is very likely that some of these people are beneficiaries of Hariri largesse in the area of northern Lebanon. But that doesn't mean that the Hariris knowingly financed Fath al-Islam, although we know that they funded fanatical Sunni groups some of whose members later joined Fath al-Islam.

EI: Palestinian refugees fleeing from Nahr al-Bared camp have been quoted in press reports saying that Fath al-Islam militants had infilitrated into the camp over the past year, that they were very separate and didn't have much contact with the camp residents except to condemn them for smoking, or playing music, or putting up posters. One of the things a refugee witness remarked on was that the camp is guarded on all sides by the Lebanese army. He wondered how these militants got in noting that they didn't drop in from the sky. How would you answer that question?

ABUKHALIL: I think it is certainly suspicious how all these people came into Lebanon, and all indications are that they came into Lebanon legally. We are not talking about infiltrations like those the American media talk about in Iraq. So they came to Lebanon with their passports, came through port entrances controlled by the Lebanese security forces and army and settled in those camps, and as you rightly indicated all these camps are under watch by the Lebanese army.

The rest of the interview can be found at: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6945.shtml

Lebanon's Enemies Unveil their New Plan

“And they plotted and planned, and Allah too plans; Allah is the best of planners” [Quran 3:54]

Following Lebanese politics the last several months has been quite a ride, particularly so after the ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon’s indigenous population in last July’s war. While the displacement and murder of these people might have been easy, the purging of Lebanon’s Shi’a from the political fabric has not. Now, the US, the Zionist regime and their regional and internal allies are scrambling to play their next and final card. Could it be the Wahabi card?

One cannot help but wonder that if creating discord among Lebanon’s many political and religious factions hasn’t succeeded (without pointing fingers at government officials as corroborators), why not use the volatile Iraqi model of foreigners and Wahabism to finally destabilize Lebanon and hurl it into a dark abyss reminiscent of the civil war days?

“Fatah Islam” the latest of the Wahabi-inspired militant groups, emerged from obscurity in November of last year, as did Al-Qaeda and several jihadi groups in recent years. Conveniently their mission is to “protect Sunnis and Palestinians”. Micheal Aoun head of the Free Patriotic Movement, who is also allied with Lebanon’s opposition group, recently warned the US-backed Siniora government about the rogue element fomenting within the Palestinian-controlled refugee camps. Did they listen? Apparently not. Fatah Islam and other Wahabi groups’ role in the “New Middle East” are much too important.

Many had wondered about the dormant 400,000 strong Palestinian refugees that had sat by silently throughout the crisis. Insignificant at the time, now they may be the key to Lebanon’s demise and further chaos in the region. Pitting radical elements from within Palestinian refugees against the rest of the country is ingenious, especially since Lebanon’s largest minority are the Shi’a. Lebanon’s enemies are maneuvering now to make their next move. Will it work?

AH Dabaja

Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr on Shia-Sunni

Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr's on the Unity

This is the last message before the Ba'athists in Iraq executed him on April 9, 1980, along with his sister Bint Al-Huda and hundreds of his supporters.

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the world, and peace and blessing be upon Prophet Muhammad, his purified family and guided companions.

O' my dear Iraqi people:

I talk to you all, Sunnis and Shias, Arabs and Kurds, at
this acute moment of your crisis and Jihadi life, because the crisis doesn't belong to one sect or group. And since the crisis is the crisis of all Iraqi
people, the brave reaction and the struggle must become the reality of all the
Iraqi people.

Since I knew my existence (being) and responsibility towards the Ummah, I have spent this existence for the sake of the brotherhood of Shias and Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds. I defend the message, which unifies all of them. And the belief which embraces all of them.

I lived with my thought and being, only for Islam - the way of freedom and the aim of all. Thus I am with you, my Sunni brother and son, as much as I am with you, my Shia brother and son. I am with both of you as much as you are with Islam, and as much as you carry this great torch to save Iraq from the nightmare of oppression and injustice.

The tyrants and their allies are trying to make our righteous Sunni sons believe that the problem is a Sunni-Shia one in order to separate them from their battle
against the common enemy.

I want to say to you, the sons of Ali and Hussain, the sons of Abu Bakr and Umar, that the battle is not between the Shia and the Sunni rule. The Sunni rule, which was represented by the guided khalafa, caused Imam Ali to carry the sword defending it in the battles of the Apostates under the leadership of Abu Bakr. We must all defend the Islamic flag whatever its sectarian colour.

Half a century ago, the Shia ulema issued their fatwas making it a Jihad to defend the Sunni rule, which was carrying the Islamic banner and hundreds of thousands of Shia went out to the battlefield shedding their blood to protect the Islamic motto. The actual rule today is not a Sunni rule although the people at the top belong historically to the Sunni branch of Islam.

Sunni rule doesn't mean the rule of a person, who has descended from Sunni parents, but it means the rule of Abu Bakr and Umar, which has been challenged by the tyrant rulers of Iraq today in all their practices. They abuse Islam, they abuse Ali and Umar together, violate Islam every day in every step they take.

O' my sons and brothers, the sons of Mosul, Bassrah, the sons of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf, the sons of Saerra and Kadhimiyah, the sons of Amarah, Kut and Sulemaniyah, the sons of Iraq everywhere.

I promise you all that I am for all of you, for the sake of all of you, and that you
are my aim in the present and the future. Your words must unite, and your
plans must be unified under motto of Islam, for the sake of saving Iraq from the nightmare of this authoritarian rule, building a free, glamorous Iraq, brightened by the justice of Islam, and covered by the dignity of man. In this Iraq, citizens with all their nationalities and sects will feel that they are brothers and will all contribute in the leadership of their country, building their home and realizing their Islamic ideas and the dawn of our glamorous history.

Ali Hassan Dabaja