Salafist Factions on Rise At Palestinian Camp in Lebanon
The historically contentious Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in southern Lebanon has been shaken up by the the surge in the proliferation of hard-line Islamism in the region, Nasser Chararah reports.
Bilal Badr, an official from the Fatah al-Islam movement (a takfiri, fundamentalist and extremist organization linked to al-Qaeda) escaped an assassination attempt yesterday [March 12] by a masked assailant in the neighborhood of Ras al-Ahmar in the Lebanese Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp.
Fatah al-Islam, according to exclusive information received by Al-Monitor, accuses Fatah of being responsible for the attack. Subsequently, sporadic security problems have been taking place inside the camp, indicating that the assassination attempt against Badr could spark an all-out military confrontation that has been looming for months between hard-line Islamist movements in the camp and Fatah.
But there is growing concern among the Lebanese security services that in the case of such a confrontation, the fundamentalist groups may manage to get a hold of the whole camp and expel the Fatah movement along with all of its supporting factions.
About three weeks ago, these Islamist groups forced a Palestinian faction allied with the Syrian regime ("al-Saeqa," the Palestinian military wing of the Syrian Baath Party), to close its office in the camp, and housed displaced Palestinians from Syria in it.
