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Sunni fundamentalists feeling the heat: experts

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.
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