There’s been no claim on the forums today for the rockets fired from southern Lebanon into Israel but everyone believes it’s a Salafi-Jihadi group. Some have opined that it’s Fatah al-Islam, but they’re as clueless as the rest of us. Look here and here for some clues as to what’s going on. Update: From MEMRI.
Here are two more puzzle pieces to add to those I put on the table yesterday. First, Aaron learned that Fatah al-Islam renewed the domain name for its website two days ago. Second, the Lebanese paper al-Mustaqbal reports that the Lebenese Army has heard that there may be attacks on UNIFIL, the UN force keeping the peace in southern Lebanon. Moreover, UNIFIL has warned its soldiers to stay away from the Ain Hilweh camp. So to recap: Fatah al-Islam announced a few days ago that its old leader, Shakir al-`Absi is either dead or in custody. The new leader of Fatah al-Islam is being “protected” by the Jihadi group, `Usbat al-Ansar, in the Ain Hilweh camp. `Usbat al-Ansar has declared that it is forbidden to attack the Lebanese Army “or any other army” and it is a duty to attack Jews in Palestine. At the same time, it is negotiating
Shakir al-`Absi, the fugitive leader of Fatah al-Islam, has issued his second audio statement since the defeat of his organization at the hands of the Lebanese Army last year. In it, he claims that the U.S. knows that it cannot directly break the “power” (shawka–a favorite Jihadi term) of the Sunnis in the Middle East, so it is using proxies to achieve the same result. This is particularly the case in Lebanon. Firstly, the U.S. is working through Sunni proxies to take control of the state’s material and media resources. Secondly, it is deliberately empowering Iran and its rejectionist allies in the region. (“Rejectionists” is a pejorative term used for Twelver Shia, who reject the first three caliphs). `Absi goes on to say that the Sunnis of Lebanon have no one to fight for them. Hezbollah is not serious about fighting Jews; they just want control of Lebanon. And the
On Saturday, an Ekhlaas member asked, “Have Jihadi operations returned to striker the Crusader Lebanese Army?” His proof that it might be so are two pieces of that day’s news: There was an explosion at the intelligence headquarters of the Lebanese Army at Abdeh in northern Lebanon. The army killed a Palestinian suicide bomber at a military checkpoint outside the Ayn Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. The first incident has been claimed by Fatah al-Islam, the Lebanese Jihadi group that was crushed by the Lebanese Army in the nearby Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp last summer. The second incident does not seem to have made news yet in the English-language media, but it has received coverage in the Arabic press. That the attacks came within hours of each other, one in the far north, the other in the far south, suggests coordination.
The May issue of the Jannat (“Paradise”) Journal has been released. The monthly journal is a collection of short news stories on the global jihad and excerpts from online Jihadi discussion forums. If you haven’t been following the latest goings on in the jihadosphere, this is a good place to look to get caught up. Although Jannat covers most of the open conflict zones in each issue, it focuses heavily on the Palestinian territories, which means that’s where its producers likely live (Gaza would be a good bet). Since it is critical of Hamas and hateful toward Hezbollah, it’s also safe to assume that its producers are Jihadi-Salafis of some sort. Jihadis are trying to gain greater visibility in Gaza, but it has been tough given Hamas’s monopoly on Sunni Islamist violence there. The headline story in this issue is the Shia march from Iran to Iraq to Syria to
