Profiles

Profile: Fatah al-Islam

Fatah al-Islam, one of the youngest armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon, is based in Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, close to the northern city of Tripoli.

The Sunni Muslim resistance group announced its formation last November, shortly after two of its members were arrested by the Lebanese authorities.

Young Palestinians among the camp's 22,000 refugees are thought to be receiving military training from Fatah al-Islam.

The Lebanese authorities say the organisation is inspired by al-Qaeda and works for the Syrian intelligence services. Syria denies such a link.

Leader

Fatah al-Islam is led by Shaker Abssi, a Palestinian wanted by both Syria and Jordan.

He is suspected of having links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late Jordanian leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Abssi was jailed for three years by Syria in 2003. Damascus has issued a new arrest warrant against him.

In 2004, a Jordanian military court sentenced Abssi to death in absentia for his alleged involvement in the murder of Laurence Foley, an American diplomat, in Amman in 2002.

At the time, the charge sheet identified Abssi as a Palestinian nicknamed Abu Yussef, saying he lived in Syria.

Bombing accusation

Fatah al-Islam has been accused of involvement in the bombing of a bus in a Christian area northeast of Beirut in February, in which three people were killed. It denies carrying out the bombing.

The organisation has accused the Lebanese government of threatening the country's Palestinian refugee camps, which hold more than 200,000 people.

Lebanon's armed forces have long agreed not to enter the refugee camps.

However, this agreement is at odds with a UN Security Council resolution passed in October 2004, which calls implicitly for action to be taken against armed Palestinian groups.

Resolution 1559 seeks the "disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias", referring not only to the Shia movement Hezbollah, but also to groups such as Fatah al-Islam inside the refugee camps.

A subsequent resolution (UNSCR 1701), which cemented a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel after a 33-day war in July-August 2006, reiterated the UN position on 1559.

No Abbas link

A spokesman for the mainstream Fatah organisation of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, robustly denies any link with Fatah al-Islam.

"Fatah al-Islam has no link with the Fatah movement. There is absolutely no connection and they have no right to use the name Fatah," said Fahmi Zaarir.

Before forming Fatah al-Islam, Abssi was a member of Fatah-Intifada, a Damascus-based organisation.

That group denies any link with Fatah al-Islam.