Lebanese majority newspaper Al-Moustaqbal, owned by Sunni leader Saad Hariri, published a report Monday saying that the Fatah al-Islam militant group is founded and controlled by Syrian intelligence officers seeking to destabilize the Lebanese government.
The report came one week after the Syrian state TV broadcasted "confessions" by captured members of the group allegedly involved in suicide bombing in Damascus in September. The confessors said that they have received financial support from Hariri's Al-Moustaqbal movement.
On the contrary, the daily published testimonies of captured Fatah al-Islam members, who said that senior Syrian intelligence officers armed and trained the group, which fought 15-week battle with the Lebanese army in 2007 at Naher al-Barid Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
Al-Moustaqbal daily quoted one of the arrested militant in Lebanon, Ahmad Merhi, as saying that he was aware of the coordination between Fatah al-Islam and Syria in 2007.
Merhi said in his testimony that the head of the Syrian military intelligence, Major General Assef Shawkat asked them to"assist" Shaker Abssi, the Fatah al-Islam's fugitive leader.
He claimed that due to Syrian assistance, "dozens of Fatah al-Islam fighters has escaped Lebanon after fighting at Naher al-Barid camp," which left 400 people dead.
Another captive, Youssif Darwish, said some of Fatah al-Islam men had been released earlier from Syrian jails to join the militant group in Lebanon.
Mustafa Mesto, a captured militant as well, said that the second in command of Fatah al-Islam, Abu Madia, was in fact a Syrian intelligence officer who was planning to assassinate Saad Hariri and Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Sfier.
Hariri, however, had asked the Arab League to send an Arab fact-finding committee to look into Syrian allegations which said that his party was financing Fatah al-Islam.
Source: Xinhua
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