Blowback in Lebanon

You know Fateh al-Islam, the nasty al-Qaeda (or are they pro-Syrian?) Palestinians (or are they Ethiopians, or Pakistanis, or who-knows-what?) who are giving the Lebanese army such a hard time right now?

Here's what Seymour Hersh wrote about them back in March:
I originally found this on Lenin's Tomb, a fine blog run by a guy from the British SWP.

Alastair Crooke, who spent nearly thirty years in MI6, the British intelligence service, and now works for Conflicts Forum, a think tank in Beirut, told me, “The Lebanese government is opening space for these people to come in. It could be very dangerous.” Crooke said that one Sunni extremist group, Fatah al-Islam, had splintered from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah al-Intifada, in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, in northern Lebanon. Its membership at the time was less than two hundred. “I was told that within twenty-four hours they were being offered weapons and money by people presenting themselves as representatives of the Lebanese government’s interests—presumably to take on Hezbollah,” Crooke said.

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A few days ago I was noticing a lot of reports claiming that many of the members of Fateh al-Islam were non-Arabs, the implication being that they had been recruited abroad. One thing that I noticed visiting Sabra, Shatila and Bourj al-Barajneh camps in Beirut (and which I haven't heard mention of so far) is that there a lot of non-Palestinians living there. Most are migrant workers from Syria, but there are also Iraqi refugees and others, and I wouldn't be surprised if the supposed Somali mujahideen or what not were actually people who were recruited at the camp.
Samidoun (Steadfast) was a network of activist groups and NGOs that worked to help displaced people in and around Beirut during and after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon last summer. I did some web stuff for them while I was there.

I found out about the relief effort from MarxistFromLebanon, who was also part of Samidoun.

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I also see that there is a grassroots relief effort, on the same lines as Samidoun and involving many of the same people. There is info on their blog, including where to send donations.