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Fatah al Islam supporters carry the body of their leader, Abdulrahman Awad, after he was killed in August. Awad is draped in the flag of the al Qaeda front group the Islamic State of Iraq. Reuters photo. |
Last month, Lebanese troops killed Abdulrahman Awad, the leader of the al Qaeda-linked Fatah al Islam terror group, and his deputy, Ghazi Faysal Abdullah, during a clash in the Bekaa Valley. Awad and Abdullah were killed while traveling to Iraq to wage jihad, according to a statement released by Fatah al Islam. To drive the point home, Fatah al Islam supporters paraded his body around draped in the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s front group.
According to the Fatah al Islam statement, Awad had also sent his son to Iraq to become a suicide bomber. Now, Fatah al Islam has reported that Awad’s son, Hisham, and two other Lebanese members of Fatah al Islam, have been killed in Iraq. From The Daily Star:
Three residents of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp who are members of an Islamist movement banned in Lebanon have been killed in Iraq.
Hisham Awad, Shadi Makkawi and Khaled Afandi were members of the outlawed Al-Qaeda-inspired group Fatah al-Islam. Some mosques in Ain al-Hilweh, which lies on the outskirts of the southern coastal city of Sidon, announced Saturday evening that the “mujahideen brothers” had been killed in Iraq while performing their “legitimate and jihadi” duty.
Ain al Hilweh is a Palestinian “refugee camp” in southern Lebanon that has long been a haven and a battleground for various Palestinian terror groups (some US intelligence officials refer to the camp derisively as Ain al Hellhole due to the lawlessness that exists there). And, not surprisingly, Fatah al Islam fighters have been bleeding out of Ain al Hilweh and into Iraq:
A number of Ain al-Hilweh camp inhabitants have fled to Iraq since the country was invaded by US-led forces in March 2003.
While Iraq initially witnessed the arrival of dozens of fighters from the camp, recent years saw several Islamic fundamentalists heading to Iraq either to escape trial in Lebanon or confinement in the over-populated camp.
Earlier, several residents of the camp were announced dead in similar conditions, with Palestinian sources estimating that 20 Palestinians from the camp were slain in Iraq and buried there.
