Saturday, April 18, 2009

Mideast: Hezbollah 'infiltrated' Fatah claims official


AKI

Cairo, 17 April (AKI) - The Iran-backed militant Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah has infiltrated the largely secular Palestinian party Fatah, one of its officials, Barakat al-Ezz, told Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Youm. Al-Ezz was commenting on reports that two Fatah militants were among 49 people arrested in Egypt for allegedly belonging to a Hezbollah cell in the country. "Hezbollah has managed to infiltrate Fatah's militant ranks, especially in the Gaza Strip," Barakat said.

"At the moment, Hezbollah is strong enough to draw in many disaffected youths on the fringes of Fatah," he added.

Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath, however claimed Fatah has no relations with the two Palestinians arrested in Egypt.

"Muhammad Baraka and Nidal Fathi Hasan are individuals who have probably left the movement. Fatah knows nothing about them currently," Shaath said.

"However, we will investigate what relations these two youths may have had with our party," he added.

Police earlier this month arrested the 49 suspects, who reportedly include Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Sudanese and Egyptian citizens.

Police are currently interrogating the suspects and Egypt's general prosecutor, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, said last Friday they would be kept in custody for a further 15 days.

Two of the Egyptian suspects have denied belonging to the alleged Hezbollah cell and claim they are members of Egypt's banned but tolerated Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement.

The group's alleged leader, a Lebanese citizen named as Shihab S. is among those detained for questioning. His brother claims Egyptian police arrested him last November.

Iran-backed Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah said Shihab was a member of his organisation and was in Egypt to help Palestinians get military equipment for the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Nasrallah denied Egypt's claim he had commissioned the alleged Hezbollah cell to destabilise the country and its leadership by carrying out terrorist attacks.

The Egyptian government claims the cell's members were plotting to attack Israeli tourists and Egyptian government institutions.

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