DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - LEBANON: FATAL AL ISLAM LINKED TO ASSAD VIA RELATIVE

Report links Lebanon's Fatah al-Islam to an Assad relative

Beirut - An alleged leader of the Fatah al-Islam terrorist network has testified to interrogators that the group is linked to the head of Syria's intelligence apparatus Maj. Gen. Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad.

Ahmed Merie, a Lebanese citizen arrested late in May at a Beirut hotel, also testified to military examining magistrate Rashid Mezher that four members of Fatah al-Islam gunned down legislator Pierre Gemayel on Nov. 21 in east Beirut's suburb of Jdaideh, according to the daily al-Moustaqbal.

Another pan Arab daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat, published a similar report.

The report said Merie testified to Mezher during interrogation that he was the "liaison officer" between Fatah al-Islam's leader Shaker Abssi and Shawkat .

Shawkat, according to Merie's alleged testimony, provided Fatah al-Islam with a "highly qualified explosives expert who trained members of the group on bomb making."

Shawkat ( L) also provided the group with "significant support," the nature of which was not reported.

Merie was also quoted as telling Mezher that he worked out the explosives expert's safe exit from the Nahr al-Bared camp in north Lebanon and back to Syria before the clashes broke out between the terrorists and the Lebanese Army on May 20.

The newspaper report quoted unidentified judicial sources as saying Merie identified four members of the Fatah al-Islam network who carried out the Gemayel murder.

The sources, however, refused to disclose names of the suspects.

Nevertheless, the newspaper said the so-called Majd el-Dine Abboud, who also goes by the code name of Abu Yezen, was one of the suspects in the Gemayel murder. He was killed in confrontations with the Lebanese Army.

It couldn't be determined whether Abboud was a Syrian or Palestinian citizen, the report noted.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Report links Lebanon's Fatah al-Islam to an Assad relative