DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - SPAIN/LEBANON: SPANISH INTELLIGENCE LAYS BLAME FOR UNIFIL ATTACK ON 3 SEPARATE JIHADIST GROUPS - ALL LINKED TO AL QUEDA

Spain suspects three Islamist groups may have waged attack on UNIFIL troops

Three Al-Qaeda-linked radical Islamic groups may have carried out last month's deadly attack on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, says a Spanish intelligence report quoted in a newspaper Monday.

In its report to the government, the CNI said the Fatah al-Islam, Jund al-Sham and Usbat al-Ansar groups were all linked to Al-Qaeda, the center-left daily El Pais reported.

The report did not support the theory Hizbullah had been involved, El Pais added.

Fatah al-Islam members have since May 20 been under daily siege from the Lebanese army, which is attempting to dislodge them from the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.

The two other groups named in the report were, it said, "much less powerful," but had bases in the Ain el Hilweh refugee camp in South Lebanon.

Usbat al-Ansar has some 100 to 200 activists, according to an El Pais estimate.

It features on a US State Department list of banned terrorist organizations because of its alleged links with Al-Qaeda's Iraq branch.

Usbat al-Ansar is also believed to have recently incorporated another group, Jund al-Sham, into its ranks.

"The target of the attack was to dampen the pressure on the Nahr al-Bared camp by obliging the Lebanese army to switch its troops southwards and attack UN forces, dubbed 'occupying forces' in October by [Al-Qaeda leader] Osama Bin Laden's lieutenant [Ayman] al-Zawahiri," El Pais wrote.

Spanish Defence Minister Jose Antonio Alonso last week attributed the June 24 attack on "a terrorist cell comprising possibly foreign individuals, that is, non-Lebanese."

Six soldiers, part of the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) serving in Lebanon, were killed in the attack when a car bomb struck their personnel carrier as they patrolled a main road between two towns near the Israeli border.

Three of the victims in the first deadly attack on the UN's peacekeeping force in Lebanon since last year's war with Israel were Spaniards with the other three Colombians serving with Spanish forces in UNIFIL.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Spain suspects three Islamist groups may have waged attack on UNIFIL troops