More Violence and an update on Fatah al-Islam

BEIRUT — Jesus. Another car bomb just went off a few minutes ago in upscale Verdun, an upscale Muslim neighborhood full of tony shops. I can’t tell yet, but there appear to be much more damage and casualties than last night’s car bomb in Achrafiyeh. The cars are still burning as I type. The neighborhood is in chaos as soldiers and rescue workers try to keep order and reach the wounded amid the flames. Updates as I can get them.
*UPDATE 1:* Future TV, affiliated with the Hariri family, says four people have been injured in the bomb.
I’d also like to write a little history on Fatah al-Islam. As the Lebanese Army fights a pitched battle with the Palestinian militant group, the question for many in Beirut — especially those who support the current government — is what role Syria may be playing in the current drama to the north. 
The timing, according to some political observers, is telling coming as it does on the heels of the introduction of a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council to set up an international tribunal that would try suspects in the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. Syria, which opposes the tribunal, could have pulled the strings on Fatah al-Islam, a group that government supporters say heeds its masters in Damascus.
National police commander Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi said yesterday that Damascus was behind Fatah al-Islam’s recent surge, with only a bit of al Qaeda ideology thrown in. 
“Perhaps there are some deluded people among them but they are not al Qaida,” Rifi said. “This is imitation al Qaida, a ‘Made in Syria’ one.”
Muhammad Shatah, a senior advisor to Prime Minister Fuad Siniora — whose government is locked in a power struggle with opposition groups that support Syria — also said Syria was trying to derail the tribunal, which is widely expected in to implicate senior Syrian officials in the Hariri killing, by sowing discord in Lebanon. The widely held belief among government members is that the leader of Fatah al-Islam, Shaker al-Abssi, is a member of the Syrian _mukhabarrat_ and was sent here last year to stir up trouble after making a deal for an early release from a Syrian prison. 
But one longtime observer of the Palestinian camps and Islamist movements doesn’t see Syria’s direct involvement. Kassem Kassir, a journalist for the pro-government newspaper al Mustaqbal who is an expert on these groups and has interviewed members of the group in Nahr el-Bared, said Fatah al-Islam, and its leader Shaker al-Abssi are supported by Salafist groups in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan that share al Qaida’s ideology more than they are by Syria. Al-Abssi’s link to Syria comes from the long history of attempts by Syria to use the Palestinians for its own purposes against Israel. 
Al Abssi used to be a member of the main Palestinian faction, Fatah, founded by former PLO chairman Yassir Arafat. He later joined Fatah al-Intifada, a fake group set up by Syria in an attempt to turn Palestinians’ national yearnings to Syria’s advantage. But with little support among the Palestinian population, which by and large stayed loyal to homegrown groups such as Fatah and Hamas, Fatah al-Intifada languished. Last year, in a bid to strike out on his own, Kassir said, Al Abssi split and formed Fatah al-Islam. 
It was possibly a natural split, he said, because Al Abssi is a Jordanian of Palestinian descent with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was killed last year. Today he gets money and men from Salafist groups in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan who share his jihadist view of an Islamic caliphate stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. 
Kassir acknowledged that Fatah al-Islam appears to be very well armed and those weapons had to have come through Syria at some point, indicating some degree of cooperation, but Syria often allows groups other than its main ally Hezbollah to arm up. 
Hezbollah has constraints on what it can do, given its image as a Lebanese resistance with members of parliament, said Reva Bhalla, director of geopolitical analysis at Stratfor, a Houston-based security firm. It is reluctant to turn its guns on the government, given that it’s part of it and it still hope to be seen as a legitimate part of the Lebanese political process. Groups such as Fatah al-Islam have more flexibility. 
“Syria is funneling weapons and men to them, keeping them there (in Lebanon) and they’re a bargaining tactic against the United States,” which is currently talking with Syria’s main ally, Iran, over a possible détente in the Middle East, she said. Significantly, she added, Iran has signaled that it doesn’t oppose the Hariri tribunal, which is making Syria very nervous that its main ally might be hanging it out to dry. 
“Syria is watching very closely that it doesn’t get screwed in any deal,” and any support it may be giving to groups such as Fatah al-Islam is to remind the United States that it has chips it can still play.     
Regardless of how the battle with Fatah al-Islam plays out, there are other groups that Syria has more direct ties with, Kassir said, such as Jund al-Sham (Army of the Sham) and Osbat al-Ansar (the League of Partisans), which are based in other Palestinian camps in Lebanon. They all share a similar ideology and all benefit from Syria’s looking the other way as materiel crosses the border coming from and heading to Iraq. 
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.