Monday
Mar232009
UPDATED: Senior Fatah Official Assassinated in Lebanon
Monday, March 23, 2009 at 17:58
Latest Post: The Assassination of Kamal Medhat in Lebanon
Latest Post: Update - The Killing of Kamal Medhat in Lebanon
Kamal Medhat (Kamal Naji), the deputy representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Lebanon and Fatah's former intelligence chief, Akram Daher, the head of the PLO's youth organisation in Lebanon, and two bodyguards have been killed in a bombing. The attack occurred outside Mieh Mieh refugee camp, near Sidon in southern Lebanon.
Abbas Zaki, the PLO chief in Lebanon, was visiting the camp at the time of the attack but was uninjured. Zaki and Mehdat were offering condolences to the families of two men killed in a family feud in the camp on Saturday.
The bomb, made up of more than 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of TNT, was detonated by remote control.
There are any number of possible suspects in the killing; on Saturday. Watch out for attempts to make political capital out of the assassination by pinning it on various groups --- Israel, Syria, Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah all jump to mind --- irrespective of evidence (or a lack of it).
The official in charge of security at the camp speculated that "a third party...got involved to create inter-Palestinian sedition and chaos," but a Fatah official in Lebanon, Edward Kattoura, said, "According to the style of the operation it seems that Israel is behind this, because it is a very highly professional execution."
Hamas official Osama Hamdan struck a conciliatory note, saying Naji had played a role in easing tensions among the Palestinian factions in the country, and cautioned, "It is not possible to speculate on who committed this crime."
Latest Post: Update - The Killing of Kamal Medhat in Lebanon
Kamal Medhat (Kamal Naji), the deputy representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Lebanon and Fatah's former intelligence chief, Akram Daher, the head of the PLO's youth organisation in Lebanon, and two bodyguards have been killed in a bombing. The attack occurred outside Mieh Mieh refugee camp, near Sidon in southern Lebanon.Abbas Zaki, the PLO chief in Lebanon, was visiting the camp at the time of the attack but was uninjured. Zaki and Mehdat were offering condolences to the families of two men killed in a family feud in the camp on Saturday.
The bomb, made up of more than 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of TNT, was detonated by remote control.
There are any number of possible suspects in the killing; on Saturday. Watch out for attempts to make political capital out of the assassination by pinning it on various groups --- Israel, Syria, Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah all jump to mind --- irrespective of evidence (or a lack of it).
The official in charge of security at the camp speculated that "a third party...got involved to create inter-Palestinian sedition and chaos," but a Fatah official in Lebanon, Edward Kattoura, said, "According to the style of the operation it seems that Israel is behind this, because it is a very highly professional execution."
Hamas official Osama Hamdan struck a conciliatory note, saying Naji had played a role in easing tensions among the Palestinian factions in the country, and cautioned, "It is not possible to speculate on who committed this crime."
Reader Comments (1)
“It is not possible to speculate on who committed this crime.”
Sure it is.
My guess is this was Fatah al-Islam, or one of the other Sunni/Qa'eda affiliated militant groups in Southern Lebanon. Given that their ranks have recently been swelled with jihadis returning home from the battlefield in Iraq (Nir Rosen has some excellent work on this), I'd say FI or another jihadi group is attempting to recreate the "Zarqawi civil war" strategy on Palestinian refugee camps and presumably within Palestine itself. That is, they'll assassinate, randomly and brutally, as many Palestinian leaders as possible in order to atomize and polarize the society into chaos.
The evidence for this comes from A) the location in Southern Lebanon where a restive sunni/palestinian jihadi movement is focused, B) the prior warnings by Lebanese security services, who are known to have excellent intelligence on Palestinian jihadists, albeit very little will or authority to do anything about it and C) the convenience of the target, given that PLO and Fatah are so despised, especially by Palestinian disapora, it's easy to imagine that the target's movements were not closely guarded secrets.
Who can we knock off the list of suspects?
Syria - PLO and Fatah are publicly acknowledged US/Israeli intelligence assets, therefore, Hands Off.
Israel - Duh, see above
Hizb'allah - Their executive capabilities come from Syrian intelligence (which itself comes from 70's-80's era CIA-Ba'athist-KGB hybrid tactics) - quite frankly a remote IED is stone age and beneath them. Also - motive???
Hamas - HIGHLY unlikely they have operational capabilities in Northern Lebanon, well within reach of Israeli intelligence services (and their airstrikes) - Beirut is about as safe as it gets for them in Lebanon, and only because of collateral considerations
Iran - Same as Syria - now would be the stupidest time ever for them to openly strike US/Israeli assets.
UPDATE: Got my Norths and Souths mixed up ;)