Arrests & Seizures by Lebanon: Sign of Terrorists' Turf War?
By Andrew Cochran
We could see a turf war, and not cooperation, developing between Islamic terrorist groups in and around Gaza and southern Lebanon. Lebanese security forces arrested suspected 13 Al Qaeda operatives two weeks ago, and only 3 were Lebanese - 3 were Saudis, 7 were Syrians, one was a Jordanian, and another was a Palestinian. Additinally, the Lebanese army recently stopped a ship filled with weapons. With respect to the latter, Israeli officials speculate that the ship was "funded by Iran or Syria and that the weapons were meant to reach either the Hamas or the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip." Western intel sources recently told me of a budding rivalry between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda over the latter's missile attacks on Israel on December 27, with the Lebanese as the former's proxy. This is confirmed in an interview in today's "Christian Science Monitor" with Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hizbullah's deputy secretary-general. "It's important to caution everyone not to make Lebanon an arena for settling scores. It will be a dangerous development if that happens..."I have read articles saying that attacks can only happen [in the border district] with Hizbullah's knowledge. This is not true."
With news of Al Qaeda's infiltration into Gaza, it's reasonable to expect that Hamas and Islamic Jihad might also move to a "turf protection" mode. The result might be some unusual actions and counteractions between the parties, with the arrests and seizures as events in a series.
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Intelligence sources say that terror organizations are turning on each other. Western intelligence sources say that there's a budding rivalry between Hezbollah and al-Qaeda over the latter's missile attacks on Israel on December 27, with the Lebanese a... [Read More]
