Show Militant splinter groups rise Scott Wilson The Washington Post The decline of traditional political institutions within Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon has allowed the rise of militant splinter groups such as Fatah Islam al which fought Lebanese troops outside the Bared al-Bared camp campin in northern Lebanon on Sunday and Monday The ari ty of pol i Islam has risen in the camps over the past decade as the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has fallen apart experts said Monday The main political organization in al- al Bared for years was Fatah al ai a of the mainstream Fatah movement of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat But Fatah Islam al broke with the group in November under the leadership of Shaker al-Abssi al a fugitive Palestinian who once worked closely with Abu al head of the insurgent group al- al in Iraq vi was killed last year by a US U.S. There are now so many Palestinian factions j speaking and debating and doing nothing forthe forthe for the people said Bernard author of Everyday Jihad The Rise of Militant Islam Among Palestinians in Lebanon So you find many local groups with local roots who cannot fight Israel because of where they are but are willing to fight The main point is that these camps are no longer part of Palestinian society said a professor at University of Auvergne in Ferrand Clermont-Ferrand France They are only spaces- spaces now open to all of the influences running through the Muslim world Bared al-Bared in 1949 to accommodate refugees from northern Palestine Palestin following the creation of Israel With roughly residents the densely populated camp has been run since 1950 by the UN U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in inthe inthe inthe the Near East Abssi who is in his SOs i t told the agency in March that his primary i mission was to reform i the Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon according to Islamic law 1 before confronting Israel i Convicted in absentia for forthe forthe i t the he 2002 assassination of US U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman Jordan Abssi has advocated killing Americans who work in Muslim countries said Abssi has i adopted a goal and message i that reflect the decline of the Palestinian cause as the i chief motivator of aspiring and their financial supporters in the Muslim world Many consider Palestine i a useless fight he said By changing their own identities to one of a Sunni warrior they also get money from Saudi Arabia and other private sources throughout the he Palestinian diaspora You are inventing a new figure of the fighter and it itis itis itis is very exciting to young people That fighters fighter's goal is to end perceived Western domination and promote Islamic rule Ali a political politic l science professor at Bir University in the West Bank said it is difficult to know the political nature of Fatah Islam al because it itis itis itis is one of many new groups whose proliferation reflects the institutional weakness of the Palestinian national movement The disintegration in the Middle East in general general from from Iraq all the way to to is Afghanistan encouraging this splintering into pieces said Look at this group It Itis Itis Itis is people but ut it can make enormous waves because it is operating in an institutional vacuum vacuum said he did not believe the group was guided by al He suspected Syrian intelligence instead Abssi arrived at the camp late last year after his release from prison in Syria and he quickly established a potent militia at a time when Syrian President Bashar al- al Assad has resisted efforts by the United Nations to try suspects in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al The UN U.N. Security Council took up the subject again this week Many Lebanese suspect Syrias Syria's hand in Hariri's al-Hariri's killing which touched off protests that led to Syrias Syria's military withdrawal from Lebanon two months later The Syrian government has denied any connection |