[LCM Articles] A Militant Fights From a Basement on Emergency Street

[Farrah Haidar]

Ain Al Hilwe Journal (New York times)

 



 


A Militant Fights From a Basement on Emergency Street 


By NADA BAKRI

AIN AL HILWE REFUGEE CAMP, Lebanon
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/le
banon/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>  - On a recent afternoon, with the smoke
still rising from buildings burned in fierce fighting here between Islamist
militants and the Lebanese Army, a man calling himself Abu Omar
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/hassan_mustafa
_osama_nasr/index.html?inline=nyt-per>  gave a tour of his squalid
neighborhood. 

Abu Omar, a militant Islamist, is among the most charismatic leaders in the
camp, loved by his supporters but detested by those who say militants bring
nothing but destruction to the Palestinians.

An old woman stopped him. "Thank God you are safe," she said, hugging and
kissing him three times on each bearded cheek. "My house is completely
burned," she said.

"Don't worry about it," he replied as he took her hands. "We will fix it or
get you a new one. Do not worry. Everything will be fixed."

The fighting was a sign of just how fragile Lebanon has become. As the
Lebanese Army battled militants in the Nahr al Bared refugee camp in the
north, gunfire broke out between the army and militants here in this camp,
near Sidon. Abu Omar says the fighting started after a soldier provoked a
"brother."

"He was telling him that 'we are defeating you in Nahr al Bared, we are
burning you,' " Abu Omar said. "Then he started shooting toward him; the
brother went home, brought his gun and started shooting back."

The government disputes that version of events, but by either account, the
camp is a tinderbox, and Abu Omar, whose real name is Chehadeh Jawhar, is an
apt symbol of the weakness of the Lebanese state. 

Even before the current political crisis, with pro-American factions
struggling to keep power from pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian parties, Lebanon
was a nation without institutions, a place where power was divided among
religious sects. It was a state that gave Palestinians free license to live
in 12 refugee camps within its borders. Within the camps' confines, they
were immune from the country's rules, laws, police and oversight, but
condemned to a life of degradation and second-class status.

For those like Abu Omar, with a militant political agenda, the arrangement
created 12 different places to set up shop and 12 bases to run to, hide in
and conduct operations. Abu Omar lives on Emergency Street, a free-wheeling
alley of martial faith surrounded by squalor. He takes visitors into his
basement.

With a shrug of his shoulders, he pointed to a corner in the darkened room
where he has stored TNT, plastic explosives and guns. He smiled, then opened
boxes and black school backpacks, rummaging through a potpourri of
ammunition, makeshift land mines and detonating wires. 

The explosives stored in his basement were similar to those that have been
used to destabilize Lebanon since the assassination of the former prime
minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. There is no way to know if the
basement was the source of any of those bombs.

An explosion recently ripped through a tire shop on Emergency Street as Abu
Omar and other militants were extracting TNT from a 107-millimeter shell,
apparently to use in making a bomb, according to Lebanese security officials
who spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to
speak to the news media. 

Abu Omar and two other militants were wounded, and two others died.

"Victory is not required from us," he said in an interview before the
explosion. "What is required is to be ready for a jihad in the name of God,
ready to reinstate Islam's rule and Muslim caliphate. It is normal, if the
army shoots at us, we will shoot back at them - normal." Abu Omar, 37, was
once a fighter with the mainstream Fatah
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/fatah_a
l/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  faction of Yasir Arafat
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/yasir_arafat/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> , the former Palestinian Authority
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/palesti
nian_authority/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  president. An electrician turned
arms smuggler, he said he left the group when he said he felt its leaders
"were minimizing" the Palestinian cause. "Palestine is not only for
Palestinians, Jerusalem is not only for Palestinians," he said. "It is for
all Arabs and Muslims."

He says he has been wanted by the Lebanese government since 1991 for scores
of felonies. "Crimes that cannot be counted," he boasted. "It is normal,
normal." 

A senior Lebanese military official confirmed that Abu Omar is wanted in
connection with numerous killings and bombings. 

He cannot leave the camp. Not, at least, through the front gate in daylight.
He says he is now a member of Asbat al Ansar, a group listed by Washington
as a terrorist group. In the camp, he built a house, married and had eight
children.

The military official said Abu Omar is believed to have left the ranks of
Asbat al Ansar and is now a member of a splinter faction called Jund al
Sham.

Abu Omar struts through the camp like a sports star, or the mayor. He
stopped at his mother's house. She had just returned from a pilgrimage to
Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He hugged and kissed her; she thanked God for his
safety. His sisters showered him with yet more kisses. "We miss you," they
said.

Taxi drivers and their customers passing by also stopped to give thanks that
he had survived the battle. More residents and neighbors joined the line. 

But caught between the army and Abu Omar and his supporters are those who
simply struggle to get through their days, and see in the militant groups
the seeds of their own devastation. 

"They burned the houses, they burned our houses," said a Palestinian refugee
who gave his name as Abu Iyad for fear of reprisal. He said his perfume shop
and his house, both on Emergency Street, had been set on fire. "If the army
gives me a uniform, I will shoot at them now," he said.

"We want to get rid of all these problems," said Mustapha Razi, another
refugee. "If my brother is creating problems, I want to get rid of him."

But they know they can't, and that the army can't either. If fighting erupts
again, they all said they would do what they did a few days ago: flee. 

Abu Omar says it is unlikely those clashes would resume. But if they do, he
said, civilians outside the camp are fair game. "If the army shoots at us
again, we will shoot at civilians in Sidon." 

And off he walked to visit his mother and sisters. 

 

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