years old and had a heart condition, he was placed under house arrest.
The camp’s security committee began to investigate Fatah al-Islam and its associates. One Syrian suspect, born in 1980, had entered Lebanon in March 2007. He had come up to Bedawi from Ayn al-Hilweh, where he joined Fatah al-Islam. Despite his ties to the jihadists, he was released because some of the camp officials worried about upsetting the Islamists in the camp. Another suspect confessed that he too belonged to Fatah al-Islam. When the raid took place, he had been in touch with a man from Jund Allah via his walkie-talkie. He was spirited away to Tripoli, where he stayed in an apartment belonging to Kanan Naji. When he returned to Bedawi he was arrested by the security committee and was found to be carrying an American-made pistol. Another prisoner, born in 1986 in Syria, had been in touch with Fatah al-Islam via the Internet. He was given an address near a mosque in Bedawi and told to go there. He took money from his father, telling him it was to cover the cost of his university tuition, but instead he went to Lebanon, hoping Fatah al-Islam would help him get to Iraq “to resist the Americans, because the Americans are the enemies of Islam.” The young man’s cover in the camp was that he was studying Islam.
In November 2006 things got worse in Taamir, an area between Sidon and Ayn al-Hilweh. Jihadist Salafis took control of the neighborhood and imposed Islamic law. At the entrance to Taamir a banner signed by Zarqawi called for the defeat of America in Iraq. Many Lebanese families left, fearing for their lives. That month a statement signed by the “Al Qaeda Organization in Lebanon,” allegedly based in Nahr al-Barid, threatened the Lebanese government, announcing that Al Qaeda had arrived in Lebanon and would work to destroy the government, which was commanded by the Americans. They would fight the enemies of God until victory or martyrdom, the statement said.
In Nahr al-Barid, however, Fatah al-Islam found a welcoming environment. Pictures of Saddam Hussein were on the camp’s walls and in its homes and shops. Graffiti in support of the jihad in Iraq was also evident. When the Syrians pulled their troops out of Lebanon and lost direct control of the camps, the vacuum they left was filled by mosques, which gained in influence as the leftist resistance groups weakened and money from the Gulf came in. Islamists were seen driving expensive cars. Nahr al-Barid was more conservative and religious than other camps, with the most clerics (about fifteen) and the most mosques (about ten). Even before the July war inhabitants began to notice religious men moving into the camp who spoke in foreign dialects and whose wives were veiled. Up to seventy of them arrived during the war, a phenomenon similar to what occurred in other camps. Following the flight of Fatah al-Islam to Nahr al-Barid, these various groups joined their leader, Shaker al-Absi, openly taking their weapons with them. Up to fifty-six people came to Nahr al-Barid from the Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut.
Fatah al-Islam had been planning to establish itself anyway, but in more than one camp at once, at a time of its choosing. In Nahr al-Barid group members took over the offices and weapons depots that had belonged to Fatah al-Intifada. They replaced Palestinian flags with Islamic flags. “When they took down Palestinian flags we knew they had no Palestinian agenda,” said Abu Yasser. New weapons arrived—American M-16s, M4s, and even missiles, unlike the Kalashnikovs that the Palestinian factions were accustomed to. In a meeting with all the camp factions Fatah al-Intifada insisted that whereas before they had been suspicious of the newcomers, now they knew the men were dangerous. Fatah agreed that they should be expelled. Other groups, nervous about potential strife, refused to have any bloodshed in the camp. Fatah al-Intifada warned that Nahr al-Barid had been hijacked by Fatah al-Islam and all would bear responsibility for what would happen. Estimates for the initial size of Fatah al-Islam varied from forty-five to seventy. Some of the men had brought their families; others married local women. Only a minority of them were Palestinians. Most were Lebanese, Saudis, Yemenis, Syrians, and even Iraqis. Many came openly, in vans. Wanted Palestinian and Lebanese men from Ayn al-Hilweh and Taamir made their way to Nahr al- Barid as well, despite the many checkpoints along the way, leading camp officials to suspect senior Lebanese official involvement in the move, since the Interior Ministry was in the hands of pro-Hariri Sunnis. Although Usbat al-Ansar never publicly endorsed Fatah al-Islam, it did dispatch fighters to join the group in the north.
Jihadists with a more violent and nihilistic agenda took over Fatah al-Islam’s leadership council and influenced its leaders, shifting their focus away from Palestine and toward global jihad. Abu Laith, the son-in-law of Shaker al-Absi and one of the founders of Fatah al-Islam, grew frustrated with the group’s change; he left for Iraq but was killed by Syrian security forces at the border. Other members also disagreed with the more extreme elements. Abu Midyan, who was said to have orchestrated the February 2007 bus bombings north of Beirut, refused to fight the Lebanese army because his enemy was Israel. In Nahr al-Barid, Shaker al-Absi linked up with a powerful arms dealer called Nasser Ismail in order to improve his power base in the camp. Ismail helped recruit members, including the more radical Abu Hureira, a Lebanese member of Jund al-Sham. Abu Hureira helped push Fatah al- Islam toward a more extremist position, and he brought many other Lebanese Salafi jihadists with him. These radicals began to alienate the residents of Nahr al-Barid. Abu Midyan and Abu Hureira disagreed about the new direction the group was taking. While Absi did not share the views of these radicals, he needed the military support they brought, and so he could not afford a rift with them. A Saudi cleric linked to Al Qaeda called Abu al-Hareth took over the leadership council. He helped bring more foreign fighters and create cells outside the camp. Some of the newcomers spoke of creating an Islamic state in northern Lebanon. Others didn’t even know they were in Lebanon; they thought they were in Iraq.
In December in Nahr al-Barid a committee from Palestinian factions told Absi that his new faction was not acceptable and that he had to return the Fatah al-Intifada offices, disband his organization, and stop making announcements to the media. Absi did not respond to their demands. At the same time, Abu Khalid, the deputy commander of Fatah al-Intifada based in Syria, was arrested by the Syrians. His boss Abu Musa gave a press conference stating that he was very upset at Abu Khalid, but the notion that the Syrians were completely ignorant of the actions of a faction they controlled strains credulity. For Abu Khalid to take such steps independently of the Syrians would have been foolhardy.
Bernard Rougier speculated that the Hariri strategy was to “control and enlarge the Islamist coalition, which could be used to fight Hizballah on the communal level. The Syrians wanted to impede the Hariri strategy by creating division in the Hariri ranks, so they inserted a Salafi jihadist group that wants to fight Israel because it would take Sunni support from Hariri. Then it took on its own life and the Syrians don’t have to do a thing. And it had a magnetic effect on Islamists in the country. It began to have influence in Tripoli.” Rougier distinguishes the communal agenda, which “views the real enemy as Shiites,” from the jihadist agenda, which “views the real enemy as the West, and Shiites are third or lower on the list of priorities.” But the Syrian regime, dominated by the Alawite sect—which is related to Shiism and which rules a Sunni majority and has crushed Islamist movements in the past —would not encourage an ideology that despises its own Baathist government. While the Syrians had allowed Arab volunteers to pour into Iraq to fight the Americans for the first two or three years of the occupation, the main opposition to the Syrian Baathist regime is a Sunni Islamist one. So it would not likely support the growth of Salafi jihadists so close to its own border. Moreover, Syria would not introduce anti-Shiite and anti-Hizballah elements into Lebanon. A Salafi attack on Israel would be Hizballah’s worst nightmare because it would drag the powerful guerilla army into a war with Israel at a time and place not of its own choosing.
“When Fatah al-Islam took down the Palestinian flag and vandalized posters of Hassan Nasrallah, they started getting a lot of money,” said Abu Yasser. “Their main goal was to be the Sunni military force in Lebanon. The north has a rich history of Salafis, and they wanted to declare their emirate. Those who empowered them were not Palestinians. We let them enter as a baby chicken and they became an elephant. How did they get these advanced weapons? When they were part of Fatah al-Intifada, they were only seventy. They became five hundred. With us they were very poor. We gave them spare clothes. How did they get so much money? And how did they buy all the grilled chicken in Nahr al-Barid?” According to Abu Jaber of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), once a leading resistance movement within the PLO but now completely marginalized, the financial situation of the Fatah al-Islam members suddenly improved as more foreign faces appeared. “They were probably there, but people didn’t see them,” he said. “How did they live for six or seven months?” he asked. “They used to buy three hundred loaves of bread a day. They bought apartments, rented land, buying very advanced weapons, spending a lot of money.” People in the camp grew worried, and some refused to rent them homes. Some said that they were Muslims who were not bothering anybody, while others said that they did not belong in Palestinian society. As Fatah al-Islam began to spread throughout the camp, it seemed to many that the group was preparing for something. It was also clear that its members could get in and out of the camp without harassment by Lebanese security officials.
“The Fatah al-Islam picture got more and more clear,” said Abu Jaber. “In their first announcement their goal was to liberate Palestine and correct the errors of Fatah al-Intifada. And they called men in the camp to join
