Fatah al-Islam : Leadership :Shehab al-Qaddour a/k/a Abu Hureira

Fatah al-Islam

Fatah al-Islam Leadership : Abu Hureira - Shehab al-Qaddour

Shehab al-Qaddour, whose nom de guerre is Abu Hureira, was the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group’s miliitary commander.

Abu Hureira was killed in Tripoli by Lebanese Internal Security Forces (Inset, left) at a checkpoint in Abu Samra, according to the Daily Star. He reportedly escaped from the Nahr al-Bared camp in Tripoli by swimming away and fleeing South to the U.N.'s Ain al-Hilweh camp near Sidon.

Born in 1971 in the Lebanese village of Mishmesh in the Akkar Province, Abu Hureira, 36 was arrested by the Syrian Army in north Lebanon in the 1990s and spent at least five years in Syrian jails.

Upon his release in 1997, Abi Hureira returned to Lebanon to the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein al-Hilweh (

) on the eastern outskirts of the south Lebanon port of Sidon.

There he joined the radical Sunni fundamentalist Osbat al-Ansar, believers in the strict Salafi form of Islam. Of great signficance is the widely reported contention that Ein al-Hilweh was thought to have become Lebanon’s al Qaeda epicenter, a “Zone of Unlaw” beyond the reach of Lebanese security forces. According to Khalil Gebara, “many unconfirmed reports have alleged that Lebanon became a transit point and haven for fleeing al-Qaeda members. What is clear beyond dispute is that a few Islamist militants with ideological allegiance to al-Qaeda operate in Ain al-Hilweh, outside the reach of the Lebanese government.

Abu Hureira certainly appears to fit that description. He moved from Ein al-Hilweh to Nahr al-Bared during the war between Hezbollah and Israel last in the summer of 2006 to set up the Fatah al-Islam network in north Lebanon.

Abu Hureira, said in a telephone interview with the Al Hayat newspaper that "sleeper cells" exists in all 12 Palestinian refugee camps and elsewhere in Lebanon were awaiting word for a "violent response."

He claimed in a telephone interview from Nahr al-Bared with Al Hayat reporter that Fatah al-Islam is "capable of transferring the battle to any spot in Lebanon. We can easily do that."

He said Fatah al-Islam can launch a guerrilla war "which no army can defeat."

Abu Hureira said Fatah al-Islam members were "highly qualified" warriors with fighting experience outside Lebanon," adding that he himself has 21 years of combat experience in different countries.

Abu Hureira reportedly bragged that at least 600 to 700 Fatah al-Islam militants are spread across Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, not just in Nahr al-Bared, and that all of them “are (in a state) of maximum alert.”

Despite his bragging, he fled Nahr al-Bared and returned with wads of cash to rent an apartment in Tripoli for $30,000.

Sources: