14 November 2008

BEIRUT: Palestinian security forces in the Beddawi refugee camp seized explosives from the home of a captured Islamist militant on Wednesday night, finding "all the equipment needed to make a bomb," an intelligence source told The Daily Star. Officials raided the home of Wael Abu Jaber, a suspected member of a militant network behind a series of deadly bombings in Tripoli, after he told them he had explosive material hidden in his basement. A "large quantity of explosives and remote detonators" were seized during the raid, the source said.

Jaber is believed to be a member of the "Jawhar cell," a group of Islamist militants wanted by security services for their involvement in a series of attacks against the Lebanese military in Tripoli over the summer that left soldiers and civilians dead.

Jaber's arrest and the subsequent discovery of the explosives haul, which also contained timers and grenades, was the result of a co-operative effort between Lebanese security officials and their Palestinian counterparts, who are responsible for law enforcement in Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps.

In the past, analysts have voiced fears that the camps are being used by militant groups seeking to exploit the lawless atmosphere created by the Palestinians' relatively weak internal security structures.

But the raid, in the heart of what is now the North's largest inhabited Palestinian camp, will be seen as a clear signal that armed groups attacking the Lebanese state will no longer find a "safe haven" in the camps. 

Jaber's apartment was searched after he confessed to storing a quantity of the explosive TNT in his home. He was arrested by security officials on Friday, after a gun battle between security services and militants in Beddawi that saw an innocent passerby killed by a stray bullet.

A senior Palestinian source told The Daily Star that residents of Lebanon's camps had no desire to provide shelter for Islamist extremists and emphasized that Palestinian and Lebanese authorities were committed to working together to rid the camps of the groups.

Describing the militants as "criminals and terrorists," he did not rule out the possibility that Palestinians living in the camp had passed on information that led to recent arrests.

"In general the bulk of the Palestinians want to live in peace," the source said. "They are not happy about what they have witnessed in recent weeks. Most Palestinians are fed up with what is happening."

Many inhabitants of the Beddawi camp know exactly how bad things can get if the Lebanese authorities believe militants are using the camps to plan attacks. Beddawi hosts thousands of people who used to live in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, which was destroyed in fighting between the Fatah al-Islam militant group and the Lebanese Army in the summer of 2007.

The violence began when Fatah al-Islam took refuge in the camp after attacking a group of Lebanese soldiers. The subsequent 15-week battle left more than 400 people dead and created a massive humanitarian catastrophe at Nahr al-Bared, leaving the camp uninhabitable and around 30,000 people homeless.

Despite initial assessments suggesting that Fatah al-Islam was unable to plan further attacks after army soldiers fought their way into Nahr al-Bared, the group has been linked to a series of recent explosions in Lebanon and Syria.

Last week Syrian state television broadcast what it said were confessions from Fatah al-Islam members, including leader Shaker al-Abssi's daughter, Wafaa, who claimed that a recent Damascus suicide attack had been planned by members of the group.

The Syrian confessions, as well as information gathered from captured Jawhar cell members, has once again focused the attention of the security services on Lebanon's Palestinian camps.

However, while security officials will be pleased with their progress in Beddawi, in Ain al-Hilweh, the country's largest palestinian refugee camp, a senior militant figure wanted by Lebanese authorities has reportedly disappeared, prompting speculation that he has escaped the country.

Abed Awad is known as the "Prince of Al-Qaeda" because of his strong links with Islamist militants and is wanted for suspected involvement with the Jawhar cell. He was also named by senior Fatah al-Islam members in the Syrian TV confessions last week.

But media reports on Thursday said that he had vanished, just days after Palestinian officials in the camp promised to reach a decision on whether he would be transferred from house arrest to Lebanese security services.

If it turns out to be true, Awad's disappearance would see him join a list of fugitive militants being hunted by Lebanese security agencies that includes both Abssi and Abed Ghani Ali Jawhar, the leader of the Jawhar cell.

© Copyright The Daily Star 2008.

 

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