http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=28410
The Lebanon Front
By Dr.
<file:///C:/Program%20Files/Common%20Files/Microsoft%20Shared/Stationery/aut
hors.asp?ID=2061> Walid Phares
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 22, 2007
Sunday in northern Lebanon, a group named Fatah al Islam conducted several
attacks against the Lebanese Army killing up to 25 soldiers and losing up to
15 members in addition to civilian casualties. The fighting is still raging
at this hour. This security development, which could be happening in many
other spots in the troubled Middle East, from Iraq to Gaza, and from Somalia
to Afghanistan, has however a special dimension. It signals in fact the
opening of a new front in the War with al-Qaeda Terror: Lebanon. Here are
the reasons Fatah al Islam is based in the Palestinian camp of Nahr al Bared
in Northern Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city with a Sunni majority.
The group is an offshoot of another group, Fatah al Intifada, both
dissidents from the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas and both
importantly backed and financed by Syrian intelligence. But Fatah al Islam,
formed last November and headed by Palestinian-born Shaker Absi, is linked
directly to al-Qaeda. Absi was a colleague of Jordanian-born Abu Musab
al-Zarqaqi who was killed by an U.S. air raid last year. Since its
inception, Fatah al Islam has told its supporters and the population in its
areas of training and operations that follow the Jihad of al-Qaeda.
Fatah al Islam aim at creating an "Emirate" (an Islamist principality, as in
the Taliban model) in the Sunni areas of Lebanon, and is planning on
conducting operations similar to the ones in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq. But
according to the Lebanese government and terrorism experts, the group is
being secretly supported by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad. The question
arises in the West about the logic of having a so-called "secular" Ba'athist
regime supporting an "Islamic fundamentalist" organization. First, the
Ba'athist logic is to use groups not necessarily carrying its Pan-Arab
ideology to attack the regime's foes and achieve strategic goals: For
decades, the Hafez al-Assad regime supported and used the national-socialist
SSNP (Syrian neo-Nazi organization), the Christian war lord Frangieh, the
Maronite militiaman Elie Hobeika, Arab Socialist factions, the Shiia
Jihadist Hezbollah and, most importantly, a roaster of Jihadi Sunni
networks. From Tripoli to Sidon, the Assads regime manipulated Harakat al
Tawheed al Islamee and the Gamaat Islamiya, both al-Qaeda-like Jihadists.
Inside the Palestinian camps of Lebanon, the Syrian Mukahabarat remote
controlled many groupings - Jihadist in their ideology and outlook, but
feeding from the Baathist machine.
The Fatah al Islam is one of the latest marriages of convenience between a
group of committed Jihadists, rotating in al-Qaeda's constellation but
gravitating around Damascus influence. The group accepts Bashar's support
and the Syrian regime tolerates the organization's "Sunni" outlook: Both
have a common enemy, even though they may come at each other's throats in
the future. The men of Bin Laden anywhere in the world, including in
Lebanon, have the same standing order: Bringing down the moderate Arab and
Muslim Governments (even in multiethnic societies) and replace them with
Emirates. The men of Bashar Assad and Mahmoud Ahmedinijad have converging
goals, bring down the democratically elected government in Lebanon and
replace it with a Hizbollah-Syrian dominated regime, as was the case before
2005. Thus, both "axis" have one objective in Lebanon: crush the Seniora
Government. They will take all their time to fight each other after.
Yesterday's clashes between the al-Qaeda linked terror network and the
Lebanese Army are a prelude to terror preparations aimed at crumbling the
Cedar Revolution, in both government and civil society, this summer. It is a
move by the Assad regime to weaken the cabinet and the army in preparation
for a greater offensive later on by Hezbollah on another front. In short,
the Damascus-Tehran strategic planners have unleashed this "local" al-Qaeda
group in Tripoli to drag the Lebanese cabinet into side battles, deflecting
its attention from the two main events threatening Assad: the forthcoming UN
tribunal in the assassination case of Rafiq Hariri, and the pending
deployment of UN units on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Both developments can
isolate the Syrian regime. Thus, the Fatah al Islam attacks can be perceived
as part of a preemptive strategy by the Tehran-Damascus axis. But the
results, if the Lebanese Army fails to contain the terrorists, could be very
serious to the Seniora Government and the UN. Worse, if the first piece of a
Sunni Triangle is put in place in Lebanon, this could affect the geopolitics
of the War on Terror globally: The rise of Salafi Jihadism along the coasts
of Lebanon, from Tripoli to Sidon, passing by Beirut. This Emirate-to-be
could become the closer strategic enclave of Bin Laden to the US Sixth
Fleet, Europe's cities and Israel.
The United States and the West are now faced with a new development which
they cannot allow to grow unchecked: an al-Qaeda base on the Eastern
Mediterranean. The strategic responses are only two: Reshape the Lebanese
Army to face off with the Jihadists and deploy multinational forces on the
Syrian Lebanese borders as soon it is possible. The Seniora Government also
has work to do: It must without hesitation call on the UN Security Council
to deploy forces on the borders, in application of UNSCR 1559 and under
Chapter 7. The three main leaders of the parliamentary majority supporting
the cabinet have opened the path for such a move: Saad Hariri, the leader of
the Sunni community, has blasted Fatah al Islam as a threat to Muslims;
Walid Jumblat, leader of the Druses and Socialists, has already been calling
for a UN military intervention; and last but not least, the various
Christian parties opposed to Assad have accused the Syrian regime of
igniting terror. All planets are now aligned for a successful move against
al-Qaeda in Lebanon, before it is too late. But the question is: will the
Lebanese politicians seize the moment?
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