Shaker al-Abssi a/k/a al-Absi : Fatah al-Islam Leader

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Fatah al-Islam Leadership : Shaker al-Abssi a/k/a Shaker al-Absi

Shaker al-Abssi a/k/a Shaker al-Absi surfaced as the leader of the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group in late 2006.

al-Abssi was responsiblle for the brutal, cowardly terrorist attack upon USAID official Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan in 2002. Both he and former Jordanian-born al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who was shot dead by U.S. miliitary forces in Iraq) were tried and convicted by Jordanian authorities in absentia for Foley’s murder. Jordanian authorities sentenced al-Abbsi to death for Foley’s murder on Jordanian soil.

Given his terrorist activities against Americans, his cowardice, and spread of al Qaeda-styled terrorism and tactics to Lebanon, one would think that al-Abssi would merit listing on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists” around the world. For some unknown reason, the FBI has not yet placed him on the list.

Born in 1955 to a Palestinian family in a village near the West Bank town of Jericho, al-Absi and his family left for Jordan after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six Day War. He lived with his family at the Wihdat refugee camp in Jordan for five years, until al-Abssi graduated with distinction from a UN-run school, according to his uncle.

He reportedly married a girl from a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon in the early 1980s, and fathered subsequently fathered six girls and a boy, all of whom reportedly live with their father in the Palestinian Nahr el-Bared camp just outside of Tripoli in northern Lebanon.

According to one news report, on Wednesday May 23, 2007, al-Abssi was seriously wounded in the hand and shoulder by the Lebanese army’s shelling of the group’s headquarters in Nahr al-Bared.

al-Abssi's personal body guard Abu Aisha (Inset: on the left holding a machine gun) was reportedly killed by Lebanon's armed forces on June 4, 2007

al-Abssi joined the Fatah Palestinian terrorist group at the age of 18 when it was headed by Yasser Arafat. He left Jordan for Tunisia where, in 1973, Fatah reportedly gave al-Abssi a pre-med scholarship to study in Tunis. Within a year, he dropped out of college and went to Libya’s Air Force Academy to learn how to fly planes. In addition to flying aircraft for Yasser Arafat, al-Absi took more aviation courses in the former East Germany, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union.

According to the Lebanese Daily Star, al-Abssi flew Soviet MIG fighter planes for Libya's authoritarian ruler, Col. Muammar Qaddafi, on behalf of Libya to support anti-Chadian rebels in northern Chad. al-Abssi's brother said that in 1981, Shaker went to Nicaragua to train communist-supported Sandinista fighter pilots.

al-Abssi Escaped From Nahr el-Bared; DNA Tests Refute Earlier Reports of His Being Shot Dead by Lebanese Army

After 106 days of fighting Fatah al-Islam forces in Nahr al-Bared, on Sunday, June 2, 2007, initial reports from the Lebanese government, As-Safir, The Daily Star, and the Lebanese Army that al-Abssi was shot dead are now confirmed to be false.

Initial reports suggested that al-Abssi was killed in a shootout with Lebanese forces when he and other remaining al Qaeda-inspired Islamists inside the camp tried to flee. Although his corpse was intially identified by military personnel and non-combatants at a government hospital in Tripoli, Lebanon, subsequent DNA tests confirmed that the body thought to be al-Abssi's was, in fact, not his.

A captured Yemeni Fatah Islam suspect told Lebanese security personnel that al-Abssi fled from Nahr el-Bared on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007, the day before the Army captured Nahr el-Bared from the radical Islamists. "Abssi was in good health, wearing an explosive belt and carrying a Kalashnikov, magazines and hand grenades," the suspect reportedly told Lebanese State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza.

The hunt for al-Abssi, who may be the most wanted terrorist in Lebanon and Jordan continues.