Lebanon Clash Implies Diaspora Is Open to Jihad

While Al Qaeda has struggled to establish itself among Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank, yesterday's violence in Lebanon suggested the Palestinian diaspora is more receptive to the jihadist creed.

The group that clashed with the Lebanese army was named Fatah al-Islam, but it has no connection whatsoever with Fatah, the long-established Palestinian Arab political movement that has always emphasized its secularism.

By contrast, Fatah al-Islam is tiny — estimated to have just 200 members — and fiercely religious, advocating a militant Islamic agenda of violence not just against Jews in the Holy Land but all "infidels," which includes Muslims who do not support its radical agenda.

Although it only announced its creation last November, it has already claimed a significant terrorist coup by bombing two buses in a Christian suburb of Beirut in February, killing three people.

Initially it was believed to be closely connected to Syria, as it was formed as a splinter group from a Damascus-backed Palestinian Arab group, Fatah al-Intifada.

It was later suggested its more radically Islamic agenda has put it at odds with Syria. Damascus recently claimed to be seeking the arrest of the group's leader, Shaker al-Abssi. Mr. Abssi is also being sought by the Jordanian authorities. They accuse him of being a close associate of the dead Jordanian jihadist who was notorious for beheading Western hostages in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Mr. Abssi was in a seven-strong gang including Zarqawi convicted in absentia by a Jordanian court of the murder of an American diplomat, Laurence Foley, in Amman in 2002.

The suggestion that Fatah al-Islam retains no links to Syria could, however, be a deliberate ruse by Damascus to distance itself from the group while secretly retaining control over it.

The violence could be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to sabotage international attempts, led by the United Nations, to set up a tribunal to try those responsible for the Valentine's Day 2005 assassination of a former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri.