A lesser told history of Al Qaeda in Lebanon

Covering terrorism: from denial to justification
by Wassim Raad – By Ghaleb Kandil – 25 November, 2103 – Voltaire.net

Groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda emerged in Lebanon 25 years ago, under various names. 22 months ago, the Lebanese Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn has launched a warning against the danger of the presence of this organization in Lebanon. He was referring to the cocktail of terrorist groups, which were established in some regions benefiting from local politics coverage by Sheikh Saad Hariri, his party and its allies in the war plan against Syria.

The existence of Al- Qaeda is now indisputable evidence, even for politicians who covered Minister Ghosn with criticism and launched against him a virulent campaign of intimidation, thereby ensuring a coverage for the activities of Takfirists-terrorists groups in their strongholds of North Lebanon, Bekaa valley, other Lebanese regions as well as in the Palestinian camps.

Whatever names they bear -Al-Nosra front, Abdallah Azzam Brigades, Jund al-Sham, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, and other movements evolving under the banner of Free Syrian Army-, these groups have carried their terrorism in Lebanon. In Syria, these movements are facing serious difficulties after the rejection of the population, the advance of the Syrian Arab Army and their internal wars. In Lebanon, these groups have targeted the Lebanese Army more than once and are a danger to all Lebanese without exception. A return on the atrocities they have committed in Syria -beheadings, cannibalism, executions, rapes, abduction of civilians and Muslims and Christians men of religion, killing great scholars like Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti- is enough to get an idea of their criminal nature and their thinking, based on the extermination of all those who do not like them.

14-Mars has offered protection to terrorist hideouts in the context of its role in the implementation of the Saudi-American plan, Today, this coalition is trying to shirk its responsibility in the occurrence and development of Al-Qaeda plague, mulling statements on the role of Hezbollah in Syria. However, the presence of terrorism in Lebanon, thanks to the benevolence of the Future, is prior to the participation of Hezbollah in Syria’s war. Hezbollah is fighting against extremist groups that threaten the Lebanese social tissue. The arguments raised by the 14-Mars represent additional coverage to Al-Qaeda, making it more difficult and expensive to fight this terrorist organization.

The speech of “haririsme” in Lebanon is a justification for terrorist acts, even if it is presented as a condemnation of the attacks. Because between the words of denunciation we find an understanding of the motivations of assassins, in order to mobilize part of the Lebanese along sectarian lines and turn them into fertile ground for extremist ideas. The fight against terrorism requires a firm, strict and unambiguous stance to bar the way to the work of recruitment and indoctrination of youth. The fact that one of the suicide bombers against the Iranian Embassy in Beirut is a Lebanese from the city of Saida, and close to the extremist Sheikh Ahmad al- Asir, who was sponsored and politically covered by Hariri, shows the damages that double standard speech of the Future Movement can cause.

Political boycott of the Syrian state by senior Lebanese officials is no less severe than the 14-Mars and the Future Movement speech. This destructive attitude also provides coverage and protection for terrorism. These leaders have fled since the beginning of the crisis in Syria behind the so called “distancing policy”, while ignoring the operating rooms installed by the 14-Mars in Lebanon to coordinate the actions of extremists in Syria, not to mention the involvement of the media of this political camp in the war against the Syrian state. These leaders have ignored the smuggling of weapons to Syria, the seizure of ships packed with huge arsenals, the import of terrorists from around the world to send them, through Lebanon, to destroy Syria and kill its people. …more