Lebanon on the Edge of Exploding, al-Qaida Affiliated in Refugee Camps Frontlines, Separate Incidents

Hilda al-Maadarani

"We are witnessing a small revolution or small chaos." That's how one of Lebanon's high-ranking security officials described what has been occurring in the country for some time now; including cutting roads for many reasons, kidnappings, protests, and separate clashes that occur every once in a while.

However, what keeps this security official's mind busy is the political arena's negligence that these security incidents might become a major explosive that would topple the Lebanese situation, and lead the country to destructive chaos.

It's worth referring to the complexity and overlap between the aforementioned incidents, the governmental crisis, the deteriorating economic situation, and the explosive Syrian situation from which sparks of sectarian wars are igniting.

According to a source circulating the high-ranking security official, the latter fears foreign projects would be created on the social and sectarian rupture in which the inside of Lebanon is blundering. He also expressed fear that the situation of the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria would affect the Lebanese refugee camps; as the Syrian camps have interacted with the internal conflict in Syria after demonstrating a sectarian character.

The source noted that "in Naher al-Bared, there is an attempt to exclude the Lebanese Army from the area which, for some Lebanese and Palestinian gangs, represents today an arms smuggling zone into Syria via the sea; i.e. there is a coastal exit for Naher al-Bared refugee camp in which a small port is exploited for arms smuggling via boats to Syria."

"It seems that these gangs almost got away with it without the Army's notice, as it conducted armed clashes under the pretexts of social causes, easing the siege and removing security measures. However; the major goal was to drive away the Army's attention on the arms smuggling from this coastal port," the source added.

Also, the source went on to say that there is leniency displayed by the Lebanese Army in tackling social and humanitarian causes, yet when the situation went far to include arms smugglings and the security situation, the Army interfered and the armed clashed occurred.

"In addition to that, the arms smuggling operations and bringing it [arms] from Libya to Lebanon is ongoing in many forms. The weapons are smuggled in forms of disjoint pieces of junk that are rejoined and manufactured in Lebanon by some fundamentalist experts. Moreover, some Salafist groups in Lebanon possess SAM 7 and Strela Rockets," he further clarified.

On this level, the source described this issue as "the first of its kind [dangerous situation], as these Salafist groups can also threaten the safety of the air navigation, and it [the weapons] could be exploited against civilian airplanes."

In this context, the source indicated that "the Vatican Pope [Benedict] might postpone his visit to Lebanon due to this issue, and due to what is circulated of some al-Qaida cells in Lebanon," further stating that "meetings [of that kind] were convened in Ein el-Helweh [refugee camp] and other places."
As the source confirmed the presence of al-Qaida affiliation cells in Lebanon, he elaborated that they are "small secret cells yet they exist, and its entering and departing movement is impossible to be monitored, because they are secret elements and have sanctuaries. They sometime hide at the al-Ansar faction's, or in the Tawarei neighborhood [in Ein el-Helweh] and some other neighborhoods where it finds protection, [although] it does not need a lot of protection."

He stated, "This does not mean that other al-Qaida groups are not present in many areas, among which are Lebanese groups that affiliate members like Abdul Ghani Jawhar, in addition to the groups that cooperated with Fateh al-Islam."

Moreover, the same source added that the French intelligence supplied the Lebanese General Security and the Lebanese Security Authorities with information on 12 Lebanese personnel in Afghanistan, expressing fears that they had returned to Lebanon after they finished their training there.

Furthermore, the source revealed a letter delivered by the al-Qaida leadership in [Pakistan] to Lebanon three months ago. This letter was delivered by Samir Kango, who is currently held in the Lebanese Army custody. This letter stated appointing someone called Nabil al-Bustani to head the northern principality; i.e. Tripoli and Homs. Al-Bustani is currently hiding in Akkar, for al-Qaida exists and so do its secret networks, yet its strategy does not include controlling geographical areas in Lebanon as much as having Lebanon represent a passageway, depot, training and expertise exchanging center, and a center to support the revolution in Syria at this stage."

As for the new strategy to be adopted by al-Qaida to intimidate its enemies in Lebanon, the source indicated that al-Qaida is exploiting human grenades instead of booby-trapped cars.
He further explained that

"some doctors working with al-Qaida in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, are conducting operations to install bombs inside the bodies of suicide bombers; who bomb themselves against specific targets, and therefore become human grenades."

This strategy was discussed by Osama Bin Laden, and was written by Abdul Bari Atwan in his book about al-Qaida. Also, Ayman al-Thawahiri mentioned the importance of human grenades in the al-Qaida's strategy to intimidate its enemy and destabilize its foes.

Source: al-Intiqad, Translated by moqawma.org

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