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Hersh on US Support for Terror group Fatah Al-Islam in Lebanon |
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Saturday, 26 May 2007 |
Interview on CNN International's Your World Today, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh explains that the current violence in Lebanon is the result of an attempt by the Lebanese government to crack down on a militant Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, that it formerly supported.
Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at any cost, even if it meant backing hardline Sunni jihadists.
A key element of this policy shift was an agreement among Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, whereby the Saudis would covertly fund the Sunni Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon as a counterweight to the Shia Hezbollah.
Hersh points out that the current situation is much like that during the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980's -- which gave rise to al Qaeda -- with the same people involved in both the US and Saudi Arabia and the "same pattern" of the US using jihadists that the Saudis assure us they can control.
When asked why the administration would be acting in a way that appears to run counter to US interests, Hersh says that, since the Israelis lost to them last summer, "the fear of Hezbollah in Washington, particularly in the White House, is acute."
As a result, Hersh implies, the Bush administration is no longer acting rationally in its policy. "We're in the business of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia. ... "We're in the business of creating ... sectarian violence." And he describes the scheme of funding Fatah al-Islam as "a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shia world, and it just simply -- it bit us in the rear."
Lebanon Crisis: Context & Implications of Nahr Al-Bared
Lebanon's defense minister has said Islamist militants entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp must surrender or face further military action. The ultimatum followed three days of fierce fighting between the army and the Fatah al-Islam group. The army has laid siege to the Nahr al-Bared camp since the fighting erupted on Sunday, bombarding it with tank fire and artillery shells. At least eighty people have died with dozens more wounded.
On Wednesday, an informal ceasefire enabled thousands of residents to flee the camp. Some headed for another Palestinian refugee camp nearby, while others traveled to the neighboring city of Tripoli. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates between thirteen and fifteen thousand refugees have left Nahr al-Bared. The camp is home to thirty thousand people. The internal conflict is the bloodiest in Lebanon since the civil war ended 17 years ago.
The Lebanese government accuses Fatah al-Islam of having ties with al-Qaeda and the Syrian government. But there's another theory of who is backing the militant group - the Lebanese government itself, along with the United States. Last March, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker that the U.S. and Saudi governments are covertly backing militant Sunni groups like Fatah al-Islam as part of an overarching foreign policy against Iran and growing Shia influence. Seymour Hersh joins us now on the line from Washington DC.
Comments posted are the sole opinion of the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of AIM. |
