Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon: Between global and local Jihad

This report looks at the militant salafi-jihadi group Fatah al-Islam (FAI), which was founded in Northern Lebanon in November 2006. It asks four questions: What is the origin of Fatah al-Islam and salafi-jihadi militancy in Lebanon? Why did Fatah al-Islam decide to engage in a full-scale military confrontation with the Lebanese army? How can Fatah al-Islam be distinguished from previous examples of jihadi groups in that country? And, what factors helped its rapid growth? Since the beginning of the 1990s, Islamic militancy amongst Palestinians in Lebanon has evolved significantly. Its traditional nationalist focus on the struggle against Israel to liberate the occupied territories and fulfill the refugees’ right to return has gradually been replaced by a struggle over the definition of identity. The Palestinian refugees began identifying with Muslims suffering in other regions of the world, and to a greater extent than before, they began adopting salafi-jihadi discourses, which called for the liberation of the entire Islamic nation (umma), not only Palestine, from occupation, secular rule, and Western influences. The fighting in the Nahr al-Barid refugee camp between Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese Army seems to have broken out as a result of a chain of events, rather than being part of a meticulously prepared strategy. It also seems that the FAI leadership had expected far more support from local militant salafis than they actually received. The FAI represents an important historical departure from previous salafi-jihadi groups in Lebanon, in the sense that the FAI demonstrated far more resilience and perseverance in its fight against the Lebanese authorities than witnessed in previous uprisings by such groups. They owe much of their strength to the fact that they have succeeded in mobilizing support from a wide range of global and regional actors. Ideologically, the group adheres to bin Laden and al-Qaida’s strain of militant Islam. Yet the group also exploits the rhetoric of Palestinian nationalism in order to maximize the support of the local population. The rise of Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon can also be attributed to the instability of the Lebanese political order, and the efforts by regional actors, Syria in particular, to influence the situation in Lebanon.