Fatah al-Islam: Al-Qaida or Not? An Inside Look

By Evan Kohlmann

The explosion of violence this week in the northern, predominantly Sunni Lebanese city of Tripoli has refocused attention on the elusive Fatah al-Islam extremist movement based there, and has led to rampant speculation over the group's actual motives. While some observers have pointed to the Salafi jihadist ideology of Fatah al-Islam and its vocal support for Al-Qaida, others have accused the group as serving as a proxy for Syrian intelligence in a bid to derail an international investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

While any connections between Fatah al-Islam and the Syrian government remain hazy at best, there is significant and troubling evidence linking the group to Al-Qaida fighters in Iraq and elsewhere. Less than a month ago, according to a militant spokesman, Syrian security forces allegedly killed four members of Fatah al-Islam (including two senior military commanders) "while trying to get into Iraq to support their Islamic brothers." The clash was hardly a well-orchestrated Syrian intelligence operation--according to Fatah al-Islam, at least five Syrian soldiers were killed in the process. Lebanese Internal Security Forces have also reportedly uncovered evidence of links between Fatah al-Islam and four suspects in the February 13 twin bus bombings in Ain Alaq, which killed three people and wounded 24 others. Allegedly, authorities were able to trace phone calls made by a prime suspect in the bombings to the main office of Fatah al-Islam in the Nahr al-Bared camp.

Yet, arguably, some of the most convincing primary evidence showing Fatah al-Islam's orientation towards Al-Qaida comes from a somewhat unlikely source: private, password-protected chat sessions on an infamous Internet forum known as "Al-Hesbah", used by Al-Qaida and other Islamic militant groups to disseminate propaganda and to recruit new members. During the past two years, one of the more prolific participants on Al-Hesbah was a user known as "Khattab Laden"--a composite ID formed from the names of his two heroes, Al-Qaida leader Usama Bin Laden and the late Saudi mujahideen commander in Chechnya, Ibn-ul-Khattab.

In the real world, "Khattab Laden" was "Abu Abdelrahman al-Maqdisi", a twenty-something Palestinian refugee originally from the Gaza Strip. After earning a college degree in chemistry, in mid-2006, al-Maqdisi passed up an opportunity to continue studying medicine in Germany, and instead joined the Fatah al-Islam movement in northern Lebanon. Al-Maqdisi was a regular participant on Al-Hesbah, offering words of support for Al-Qaida and insurgents in Iraq and providing online technical assistance to other "brothers in need". The young Fatah al-Islam commander was also clearly an avid supporter of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, offering his unqualified support for statements spread by Zarqawi and, likewise, the current leader of Al-Qaida's "Islamic State of Iraq" Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. When al-Hesbah offered its users the opportunity to submit questions to notorious Saudi Al-Qaida leader Abu Nasser al-Qahtani in Afghanistan, Abu Abdelrahman al-Maqdisi immediately responded, asking, "Is there an ability to receive young men arriving in Afghanistan? Are there camps and weapons training? Or will they be forced to hide indoors?" Separately, al-Maqdisi posted files for download by other Al-Hesbah users justifying and celebrating the July 7, 2005 suicide bombings in London. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, to learn that Al-Hesbah and other online terrorist websites have recently begun carrying official releases from Fatah al-Islam alongside similar material produced by Al-Qaida and jihadist organizations based in Iraq.

A final note: some commentators on the recent violence in Lebanon--including a representative of Al-Hayat newspaper interviewed on CNN--have suggested that the Salafi-orientated Fatah al-Islam and the Shiite Hezbollah party are nonetheless working together to destabilize the Lebanese government. Rather than explaining at length how far-fetched this notion is, I would simply quote the words of the late Abu Abdelrahman al-Maqdisi in response to reports of crimes allegedly committed by Shiite "gangs" in Iraq and Lebanon: "May Allah curse the apostates, the tyrants, and their supporters."

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