more on al-Masri.....
Car bomb kills Egyptian Islamist in Lebanon camp
haaretzdaily.com
Abu Mohammad al-Masri, according to Israel a senior Al-Qaida militant in Lebanon, was killed in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp Saturday as he was heading to a mosque to pray.
Abu Mohammad al-Masri, an Afghan war veteran who came to Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp six years ago and has never left, was killed as he left his bean shop to walk to the mosque. Camp sources said two other residents were injured in the blast.
The mosque was frequented by members of Osbat al-Ansar, a militant group on Washington's list of "terrorist" organisations suspected of links to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida network.
"The dead man was targeted personally," said Sheikh Jamal Khattab, an Islamist leader in the southern Ein el-Hilweh camp, although he could not say if the man was a member of Osbat al-Ansar.
Palestinian security sources said the attacker had driven a Beirut-registered explosives-laden car into the camp in the middle of the night. They said they believed the device was timed to explode as Masri arrived to pray.
A previously unknown group calling itself Youth of the Armed Struggle claimed responsibility for the attack in a faxed statement sent to Reuters, saying Masri was a member of Jamaat an-Nour, thought to be an offshoot of Osbat al-Ansar.
"We decided to cut off the head of the snake in a first step that the Youth of the Armed Struggle will take to cleanse the camp of all suspect elements that were planted in the camp, and which started to sabotage camp security," the statement said.
The fax blamed Jamaat an-Nour for a string of bomb attacks in Ein el-Hilweh and for threats against prominent Palestinians in the camp.
But Islamists in Ein el-Hilweh, near the port city of Sidon, quickly blamed Israel for the attack, saying an Israeli reconnaissance plane had hovered overhead prior to the bombing.
A senior Lebanese army official confirmed an Israeli plane had flown over Sidon on Friday, but said there was no reason to believe the two events were related.
A string of bombings has ripped through Ein el-Hilweh in recent months, where tensions have been high since Islamic militants clashed with fighters loyal to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction in August, killing three people.
Lebanese politicians hostile to some 350,000 Palestinian refugees registered in about a dozen camps across Lebanon point to Ein el-Hilweh as a haven for militants and organised crime. |
