Hamas Joins Ingathering of pro-Damascus Palestinian Terrorists
Damascus has mobilized thousands of radical Palestinian fighters for a final push in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli to defeat the Lebanese army. Syrian president Bashar Assad is obviously determined to persevere in his campaign using Palestinian proxies to terrorize Lebanon and destabilize the Sinora government.
A small group of Hamas gunmen has joined the radical Fatah al-Islam. They were trained and armed for this mission by Hizballah as a form of remuneration for the assistance the Lebanese Shiite group renders the Palestinian Islamist Hamas in Gaza.
Monday, June 11, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources reported the sighting of 2,000 members of the pro-Syrian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command at the Jabal Maysara north of Tripoli. They had ridden across from Syria in brand-new white Toyota pickups, all fitted with recoilless cannons and loaded with anti-tank weapons.
The convoy parked menacingly opposite the Lebanese army’s 1st Infantry Brigade which was on standby as a reserve force for the troops fighting the pro-Damascus Palestinian terrorists in the Nahr al-Bared camp.
A second column of several hundred fighters of Ahmed Jibril’s group headed out of their bases in the Beqaa Valley to its subterranean base in Naama 20 km south of Beirut.
In East Beirut, Hizballah continues to take over property and land under which its members are sinking a network of military bunkers similar to the buried fortresses in South Lebanon.
Drawing on the lessons of their war against Israel last year, Hizballah is heavily fortifying these tunnel-sites against heavy shelling and aerial bombardment.
Given these comings and goings, the average Lebanese citizen had only sour comments to offer for Damascus’ two-faced condemnation of the murder of the anti-Syrian parliamentarian Walid Eido, his son and eight other civilians by a massive explosion in his car Wednesday night, June 13.
The Bashar regime simply ignored any suggestion, including the one from US President George W. Bush that Syria is implicated in the crime.
