Son of slain Fatah al Islam chief killed in Iraq

Awad-dead.jpg

Fatah al Islam supporters carry the body of their leader, Abdulrahman Awad, after he was killed in August. Awad is draped in the flag of the al Qaeda front group the Islamic State of Iraq. Reuters photo.

Last month, Lebanese troops killed Abdulrahman Awad, the leader of the al Qaeda-linked Fatah al Islam terror group, and his deputy, Ghazi Faysal Abdullah, during a clash in the Bekaa Valley. Awad and Abdullah were killed while traveling to Iraq to wage jihad, according to a statement released by Fatah al Islam. To drive the point home, Fatah al Islam supporters paraded his body around draped in the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s front group.

According to the Fatah al Islam statement, Awad had also sent his son to Iraq to become a suicide bomber. Now, Fatah al Islam has reported that Awad’s son, Hisham, and two other Lebanese members of Fatah al Islam, have been killed in Iraq. From The Daily Star:

Three residents of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp who are members of an Islamist movement banned in Lebanon have been killed in Iraq.

Hisham Awad, Shadi Makkawi and Khaled Afandi were members of the outlawed Al-Qaeda-inspired group Fatah al-Islam. Some mosques in Ain al-Hilweh, which lies on the outskirts of the southern coastal city of Sidon, announced Saturday evening that the “mujahideen brothers” had been killed in Iraq while performing their “legitimate and jihadi” duty.

Ain al Hilweh is a Palestinian “refugee camp” in southern Lebanon that has long been a haven and a battleground for various Palestinian terror groups (some US intelligence officials refer to the camp derisively as Ain al Hellhole due to the lawlessness that exists there). And, not surprisingly, Fatah al Islam fighters have been bleeding out of Ain al Hilweh and into Iraq:

A number of Ain al-Hilweh camp inhabitants have fled to Iraq since the country was invaded by US-led forces in March 2003.

While Iraq initially witnessed the arrival of dozens of fighters from the camp, recent years saw several Islamic fundamentalists heading to Iraq either to escape trial in Lebanon or confinement in the over-populated camp.

Earlier, several residents of the camp were announced dead in similar conditions, with Palestinian sources estimating that 20 Palestinians from the camp were slain in Iraq and buried there.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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2 Comments

  • Neonmeat says:

    It’s interesting the article does not mention who actually killed them, I assume Coalition but US, UK etc? Not that it really matters, as this is excellent news, no son to carry on in the fathers name, even though he was supposedly sent there to commit a suicide attack, what type of father sends his son off to certain death? I am glad they are dead. This is a lesson I’d like all Militant Islamists to learn, especially ones from Europe and the US who grow up in Western comfort and then come to believe in the righteousness of Jihad and crave the ‘romantic’ life of the Mujahideen – travel to Iraq and you will die a pointless meaningless and pathetic death.
    As the Royal Marines pulled out of a province in Helmand in Afghanistan yesterday our media is asking did the 300+ soldiers who gave their lives die in vain? No they did not, over 300 of our Soldiers died for us over 6years and took many fanatical killers with them, I believe we are in an existential battle with Islam, I believe some of it’s beliefs can never be reconciled with ours and that it in the end it, and especially in Al Qaedas vision, it wishes to subjucate us to Umma by conversion or death, just as it did in past centuries in Europe and Afghanistan and the middle east. The losses the Taliban and Al Qaeda suffer compared to us are staggering and although they have faith so do we and I have faith in our Troops, that they are better in every way, morally physically and mentally. I wish the US Marine Corps continued success in this area, I’m sure they will do what they do best.

  • Zeissa says:

    Personally I much prefer for them to leave our countries so we can kill them more easily.
    I don’t think the father you’re speaking off did badly as a father though. He gave his son to what he thought was god. Its just a hateful mistake that he actually sacrificed it to a political construct.
    Btw., I recommend you check up on what Hindu Kush means in Hindi and how many Hindus have been killed in the name of holy war since the first muslim invasion of that subcontinent a thousand years ago. It’s an enlightening tread over the history of forced submission or death.

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