TRIPOLI (Reuters) - "... "The salafis who decided to embrace violence as a way to change -- we really don't know much about them," she said, describing such militants as a small, disparate minority. Islamist fighters, including Arab veterans from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have found havens in Lebanon, especially in Palestinian refugee camps off-limits to security forces. Some have links to al Qaeda, as well as to local clerics who spring from homegrown Salafi groups with a longstanding foothold in Tripoli and other Sunni-dominated cities, researchers say.
The Lebanese authorities are rolling up a network of militants allegedly behind two Tripoli bombings that killed 22 people, including 15 army soldiers, in August and September.
Syria, whose troops left Lebanon in 2005 after three decades of control, has blamed Islamists from a "neighboring Arab country" for a bomb blast that killed 17 in Damascus last month.
Security sources say 24 Lebanese and Palestinian militants have been detained in the past week, including seven said to have confessed to taking part in the Tripoli attacks...
Tripoli remains on edge,... The city's mostly Sunni residents, whose votes could sway next year's parliamentary election, are caught up in Lebanon's political conflict -- itself linked to a wider contest pitting Iran and Syria against Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies...
Sheikh Daa'i al-Islam Shahhal, a top Salafi leader, told Kuwait's al-Anbaa newspaper that a Syrian incursion would "open the gates of hell" and create Iraq-style misery in Lebanon...
They suggest Assad is seeking favor with the West by painting Syria as a bulwark against Muslim militancy... Tripoli's Islamists are far from united. Some keep up a dialogue with Hezbollah, admiring its resistance to Israel. Some Salafi groups even signed an understanding with the Shi'ite faction in August -- only to repudiate it the next day.
Sheikh Bilal Shaaban, leader of Tawheed, an Islamist faction that ruled Tripoli for a while until crushed by the Syrians in 1985, described his relations with Hezbollah as excellent. He accused Saudi Arabia of using Sunnis in a proxy war with Syria.
Contradictory rumors and conspiracy theories fly fast in Tripoli, where some Muslim clerics say local politicians and foreign powers exploit Sunni sectarian fears for their own ends..."
Uprooted Palestinian
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