Galal Nassar analyses the rise of Fatah Al-Islam and the peculiar alliance of Al-Qaeda and pro-government forces in Lebanon Lebanon is a lightning rod, affected by all the seismic tremors of the Arab world and brimming, too, with all its hopes. In recent weeks it has once again acted as a conductor as Lebanese army and Fatah Al-Islam came to blows. Fatah Al-Islam -- which first emerged in Tripoli -- has taken root in a number of Palestinian refugee camps, including Nahr Al-Bared, Ain Al-Helweh and Al-Badawi. The Lebanese army is thus party to an ongoing saga. Since Lebanon's independence, its army has been a pillar of commitment and patriotism. It has lived up to its reputation for integrity, refusing to take part in any of the civil wars in which the country has become embroiled. Attempts by warring factions in Lebanon to drag the Lebanese army into siding with one group over another have failed. The Lebanese army remained neutral, its only goal being to defend Lebanon's freedom, security and independence. The army as a consequence has been rewarded with the trust of the Lebanese. Two army chiefs have gone on to become president -- Fouad Chehab, in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and Emile Lahoud, who won his current post as a result of his patriotic stands during earlier troubles and because of his support for the national resistance against Israeli aggression in the south. Fatah Al-Islam is an offshoot of Fatah Al-Intifada. The latter broke away from the main Fatah movement in protest against the policies of former president Yasser Arafat, and proceeded to forge close links with both Syria and Libya. Fatah Al-Intifada was among the Palestinian resistance groups that opposed peace efforts, including the Arab peace initiative. It was active in expelling Fatah and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) forces from refugee camps in northern Lebanon, including Al-Badawi, Nahr Al-Bared and Ain Al-Helweh. As a result the role of the PLO Armed Struggle Offices in maintaining security in the camps -- in accordance with the Cairo agreement signed by the Palestinians and the Lebanese army and mediated by the Egyptians in 1968 -- ended. The Cairo agreement allowed the Palestinians to carry weapons within the camps but not outside. Even within the camps, the PLO was in charge of supervising all weapons and enforcing security. The Palestinians continued to carry weapons in the camps even after the PLO was no longer around to maintain order. The task of keeping order within the camp was left to the so-called "steadfastness and confrontation" committees, which included the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC), Fatah Al-Intifada, Al-Saeqa, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). It was an arrangement fraught with problems. Coordination among the Palestinian groups was ineffective but the Armed Struggle Office no longer had any way of keeping things in check. Yet commitment to the Cairo agreement, on the Lebanese side, remained unchanged. Initially Fatah Al-Intifada maintained close ties with Syria and Libya but these alliances dwindled, especially after other Palestinian groups returned to the PLO fold. Fatah Al-Intifada was left out in the cold, with the weakest of links to other Palestinian factions. After 9/11, and the launch of the US-led war on terror, Libya and Syria finally dumped Fatah Al-Intifada. The group lost its military support and could no longer pay its members or afford military or other supplies. As most of its members began walking away, Fatah Al-Intifada crumbled. Some Lebanese parties were monitoring the situation, forging ties with former Fatah Al-Intifada members on the assumption they might be useful in any future conflict. Al-Qaeda was also interested, and its operatives began to seek out former members of Fatah Al-Intifada. Among Al-Qaeda's motives was the fact that its main subsidiary in the vicinity, the group calling itself Jund Al-Sham, had proved ineffectual. Some of Jund Al-Sham's leaders had become known to the Lebanese authorities following the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Al-Hariri. Following Al-Hariri's assassination, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1559, calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the disarmament of all Lebanese militia, and the extension of government sovereignty over the whole of Lebanon. Suddenly Fatah Al-Islam sprang into life, with the support of major parties in the pro-government camp. The aim was to establish a Sunni militia as a counterweight to Hizbullah, active in the opposition camp. While a heated debate continued over the implementation of 1559, the Lebanese-Israeli war of summer 2006 broke out. Unexpectedly, Hizbullah held its ground. The war boosted Hizbullah's political stature in a manner that made many uneasy. Hizbullah lent its weight to the opposition in its conflict with the government. Fatah Al-Islam, a group backed by both the Lebanese opposition and Al-Qaeda, was thus poised to play a greater role in the country. The time was right. The Palestinian camps were suffering a power vacuum. The PLO was virtually absent from the scene and the Cairo agreement banned the Lebanese army from entering the camps. The unholy alliance between Al-Qaeda and the Lebanese majority recalls the alliance between the US, the Afghan mujahidin and the Taliban against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Just as the alliance between the Americans and the groups that later formed Al-Qaeda carried the seeds of its own destruction, the alliance involving Fatah Al-Islam was highly explosive. Bloodshed was inevitable. Assassination attempts came thick and fast, and the targets were mostly figures in the majority, or pro-government, camp. Marwan Hamadah and May Chidiac survived, but others didn't, including Pierre Al-Gemayel and Jubran Al-Tuweini. Lebanese investigators have yet to find the perpetrators of these attacks. As the conflict between the majority and the opposition escalated, protests were held, acts of civil disobedience were mounted, and accusations exchanged. A storm gathered in the air, and everyone braced themselves for a difficult summer. But what lies behind the timing of this particular confrontation? The answer is complex: it includes considerations to do with the Lebanese presidential elections, with the formation of an international court to try the perpetrators of Al-Hariri's assassination, with schemes to settle the Palestinians permanently in Lebanon. It also includes attempts to disarm the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance, with the prospects of Israeli attacks against Syria and Lebanon, with Ehud Olmert's plans to redraw the map of Israel, with the US defeat in Iraq and with the possibility of a speedy pullout of US troops from Iraq.
