Fatah al-Islam Preparing for Final Showdown With Army

Naharnet Newsdesk Hooded Fatah al-Islam fighters have fanned through the residential districts of north Lebanon's Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in preparation for what appears to be a final showdown with the Lebanese army, residents told Naharnet Friday. Fatima Madhy, who deserted her apartment early in the day and re-settled with relatives south of Beirut, said the militants are "everywhere in the camp. They are occupying residential apartments and setting up sniping nests on rooftops."

Muslims taking over property of other Muslims so they can fight with the Lebanon Army (primary Muslims). This is the "Religion of Peace"?

Madhy, 42, said that after taking refuge in the basement with her husband, four children and neighbors, "we went up to our second floor apartment and found three hooded Fatah al-Islam gunmen entrenched in it." "We begged them to leave. We told them that if they open fire from our apartment the Lebanese Army would shell it," Added Madhy, her eyes brimming with tears. "They wouldn't listen. One of them who spoke Arabic with a North African accent told us that we better help them in the fight against the American (U.S) Army." "We argued that it is the Lebanese army that they are fighting, not the U.S. Army, but they didn't want to understand.

They are too smart to fight the U.S. Army; they know they would immediately be wiped out.

One of them said the Lebanese Government is controlled by the Americans which makes it an enemy government," she said.

An enemy of who? You are in Leabanon, fighting the Lebanese Government, and you don't even live there.

Hizbullah Leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah has accused the majority government of Premier Fouad Saniora of being a U.S.-controlled dummy.

You would prefer an Iranian controlled government acting through their client state Syria???

Madhy's husband, Abdul Karim, a retired Palestinian guerrilla who fought with the mainstream Fatah faction in the 1980s, said Fatah al-Islam fighters are "not Palestinians." "They speak a variety of accents: Syrian, Yemeni, Egyptian, Saudi, Moroccan and Algerian. Some of them do not speak Arabic at all."

If they think the Lebanese government is really the US Government, I wounder if they would mind if the US Counter Attacks Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Morocco, and Algeria? And what would those governments think about their citizens running that risk?

"They say they came here to fight the crusaders," Abdul Karim explained.

They about 900 to 1000 years too late, and in the wrong places.

Abdul Karim decided to get his family out of the camp "when I found out that those strangers are every where. They have spread across the whole camp."