The presence of a network linked to Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Lebanon has long been known and pre-dates the Iraq war. It goes back to about 2000-2001, when Zarqawi was running his own terrorist training camp outside of Herat, in Afghanistan . The members of the camp were called ?Jund al-Shem” , or soldiers from the Shem region, a historical Arab region that covered Lebanon, Israel/Palestinian territories , Syria , and western Jordan . Zarqawi trained individuals from these areas, primarily, with an eye toward one day sending them back to form terrorist cells in their home countries. With the oncoming US invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 , the Jund scattered. Some went with Zarqawi into Iran and eventually, Iraq . Others worked their ways home.
Some of those who went home to Lebanon joined up with members of the Afghan Jihad and were absorbed into a radical, Salafi group called Asbat al-Ansar and a small, sister group of Asbat that would eventually be called al-Qaeda in Lebanon . Between the two groups, they plotted unsuccessful attacks against the US, British, and Jordanian Embassies in 2001 (source) (Intel Report forthcoming) and the Italian Embassy in 2004 . They have attacked fast food restaurants (Terrorist Incident forthcoming), and plotted, again unsuccessfully, to assassinate the US ambassador to Lebanon (Intel Report forthcoming). In 2004, Lebanese authorities arrested Ismail Khattib, who they said was in Lebanon recruiting young men to fight in Iraq for Zarqawi.
Lebanon, a country not quite the size of Connecticut, does not face the problems of Saudi Arabia or Yemen of having swaths of land that are near impossible to police. However, Lebanon contains islands of lawlessness, perfect for the cultivation of terrorist groups in the form of its Palestinian refugee camps. Lebanon considers the refugee camps autonomous. ?Policing? in the camps is done for the most part by the Palestinian militias and gangs inside. The most notorious camp is the Ein al-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, which the Lebanese press calls ?the Island of No Law.? The camp is a one-square mile patch of land where 70,000 people live. Lebanese police and army will not enter the camp. They guard the entrances and exits, but inside the perimeter, the proverbial inmates are in charge. Inside, Palestinian gangs associated with Fatah wage gangland style warfare with Lebanese terrorists from Asbat al-Ansar and al-Qaeda who also have their bases there. From the camp, they plot attacks against targets in Beirut and other places in Lebanon. Even when terrorist attacks are foiled, Lebanese authorities do not pursue terrorists into Ein al-Helweh. When suspect individuals are picked up, it is because they have left or tried to leave the camp. Many people wanted by the authorities hide in the one-square mile plot their entire lives. According to sources cited in al-Hayat, at least one of the 13 men arrested recently is connected to Asbat al-Ansar, specifically to the bombings of US fast food restaurants and the assassination of cleric Nizar al-Halabi that were carried out by that group.
Until Ein al-Hilweh is cleaned out and policed, Lebanon will continue to live under the shadow of the plotting terrorists in the camp. There is little chance of this happening soon, however, even if the worst fears of Lebanese authorities are realized. Lebanese authorities fear a Palestinian uprising in the camps across Lebanon if they go into Ein al-Hilweh, an uprising they worry could be more deadly than a terrorist attack. Thus, they have followed a policy of working to interdict terrorists and terrorist plots outside of the camp, without ever addressing the source of the problem.
There is fear now in Lebanon that, with Syria?s military and security might now gone, terrorist groups will feel more comfortable crawling out of their traditional havens in the country. There is also a worry that Zarqawi, who in November proved to the world that he was capable of carrying out a significant attack outside of Iraq , may focus on western or American targets in Lebanon. Also ringing alarms is Zarqawi?s network?s recent claim that it was they who carried out a rocket attack from southern Lebanon against Israel (see this WAR Report and Terrorist Incident).
According to a document on Zarqawi signed by Saif al-Adl, a member of the al-Qaeda core in Afghanistan still at large, one of the pieces of advice that al-Qaeda gave to Zarqawi before he left Afghanistan was to pay attention to new opportunities in Lebanon. ?Be prepared to exploit whatever circumstances come along,? al-Adl allegedly said to Zarqawi, ?opportunities in other places like [Iraq] may come up in the future. Our expectations indicate that Syria and Lebanon may be exposed to circumstances similar to what Iraq is going through currently. If this does happen, it will give the Islamic movement another wide region in which to work.?
Adding to Lebanon?s many challenges going into 2006 will be that of protecting the country from opportunistic al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists who see in Lebanon?s burgeoning new government a chance to exploit a power vacuum in a country with vulnerable and appealing targets.
