Fatah al-Islam's crushing defeat a month ago after a bloody showdown with the Lebanese army has forced other Sunni radical groups to go further underground, experts say.
The support of Islamist groups for Fatah al-Islam has been fading since the Sept. 2 fall of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon after 15 weeks of fierce battles with the army that cost around 400 lives.
Omar Bakri, an Islamist preacher barred from Britain for his radical views, said Fatah al-Islam could not count on other Sunni groups, even those with similar radical ideologies such as Osbat al-Ansar which is based in a refugee camp in southern Lebanon.
"I don't think Fatah al-Islam and Osbat al-Ansar have any relationship whatsoever, because it is in time of need that you see who is your friend," Bakri said.
"And nobody has offered support to them, a lot of people even joined together to condemn Fatah al-Islam," he said.
Bakri is a Lebanese of Syrian origin who infamously praised the al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US as the "Magnificent 19."
He headed the radical al-Muhajiroun group in London until 2004. He was declared an undesirable by London and deported, and has since lived in the northern port city of Tripoli where he runs a bookshop and religious center.
Bernard Rougier, a French expert on Islamists in Lebanon, said that Osbat al-Ansar "hides its Jihadist [holy war] agenda, while they continue to operate in Iraq."
Osbat al-Ansar did not want to jeopardize what he called underground operations for the recruitment and export of young Islamists from Lebanon.
Bakri said that Fatah al-Islam had unwillingly engaged in the armed confrontation with the Lebanese army.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS