So for the past two weeks there has been a recent surge of violence emerging out of Lebanon for reasons that have perplexed me and without doubt, the rest of the viewing public. I intended to follow the story as closely as possible with aims of reaching a clear understanding of the issue at hand and the players involved. On May 20th 2007, fighting broke out between Fatah al-Islam, a Islamist militant organization, and the Lebanese Armed Forces. Before I delve into the cause of the conflict, I’ll use this blog to elaborate more on this new group whose name hasn’t been mentioned before in the mainstream media. “Fatah al-Islam” translated in English means “Conquest of Islam”. The group announced in formation in late November 2006 after it split from another militant group called Fatah-al-Intifada, a Syrian-backed Palestinian group. A key fact to keep in mind is that this group is characterized as a Sunni Arab Islamist group. Interestingly, the group’s identity is difficult to describe and consequently, is a main source of the confusion. To my understanding, the group is trans-national and many of the fighters have fought in Iraq and have trained in camps in places such as Jordan and have a . Although they operate and train out of Nahr el-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp, the members are not solely Palestinians nor do they dedicate themselves to the specific cause of liberating Palestine. Hence, many of their members come from different parts of the Middle East from Jordan, Syria and even Bangladesh. Lastly, Fatah al-Islam's leader, Shaker al-Abssi, is a veteran Palestinian freedom fighter. Contrary to what is said in the mainstream news, the group is not part of the Al-Qaeda network. Abssi and other members of the group claim they are only in agreement with Al-Qaeda and their mission.