The Fatah al-Islam movement was founded last year by Shaker al-Abssi, a Jordanian born in Palestine who has Salafist leanings and is close to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.
With the help of Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Abssi assassinated U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan in 2002.
Later a Jordanian court tried him in absentia and sentenced him to death, but U.S. and Jordanian forces never attempted to apprehend al-Abssi.
He was then arrested in Syria and spent one year in prison, but after the downfall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, he headed to Iraq together with al-Zarqawi and organized Al-Qaeda of Iraq.
Assassinating prominent Iraqi Shia figures and carrying out suicide bombings at Shia shrines are some of the goals of the organization.
After al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006, al-Abssi, along with his 140 troops, entered Lebanon through Jordan and then Syria’s borders and took up residence in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.
Of course, al-Abssi should have been arrested and punished by U.S. and Jordanian forces, but he managed to freely enter Lebanon through Jordan and Syria with all his military equipment.
The series of bombings in Beirut’s Ashrafieh and Ein Alaq districts that killed many Lebanese civilians were carried out by the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group.
Documents obtained by the Lebanese security services that were later publicized show that Fatah al-Islam planned to assassinate 36 prominent Shia leaders in Lebanon.
Honest analyses show that the movement was established by the CIA with the objective of confronting the Lebanese Hezbollah and preparing the ground for the disarming of the group.
Most of the accounts of Fatah al-Islam, which receives financial support from a group of rich Arab Salafists, are in U.S. banks.
Yet, how is it that the U.S. freezes the bank accounts of many Islamic movements, but does not freeze bank accounts of Fatah al-Islam?
Moreover, when al-Abssi quit the Fatah al-Intifada movement, which is led by Colonel Abu Musa, and founded the Fatah al-Islam organization, the New York Times printed a detailed interview with him and the U.S. media extensively focused on him.
Other measures by the United States, including recent shipments of weapons to resupply the Lebanese Army, are part of the new U.S. plot to reenter the stage in Lebanon in order to eliminate Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s illegitimate government has become extremely shaky since the publication of the Vinograd report, and this new plot has been devised to help it regain its former standing.
Hence, through attempts to create tension in Lebanon and clash with Hezbollah, Fatah al-Islam is trying to prepare the ground for the U.S. Marines to return to Lebanon.
But will the U.S. succeed?
Surely not!
Just as when the United States created the Al-Qaeda organization in Afghanistan to confront the Soviet Union but later Al-Qaeda became its number one enemy, it is repeating the same mistake with Fatah al-Islam, and in the future it will face an organized terrorist group called Fatah al-Islam that will threaten the interests of the U.S. and the West throughout the world.
RMN/HG
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MNA