Professional Soldiers ® - Senior Fatah official killed in south Lebanon

And so it goes...;)

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Senior Fatah official killed in south Lebanon
HUSSEIN DAKROUB, AP, 23 Mar 2009

An explosion in southern Lebanon on Monday killed a senior Fatah official and three of his bodyguards as they were leaving a Palestinian refugee camp, Lebanese and Palestinian security officials said.

The blast, apparently from a roadside bomb, struck a two-car convoy carrying Fatah's Kamal Madhat as they left the Mieh Mieh camp near the southern port city of Sidon, killing him and the bodyguards, the officials said. A fourth bodyguard was wounded.

Madhat's car was completely gutted in the explosion that left a 16 feet (5-meter) wide crater, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The blast was heard across Sidon. Witnesses said pieces of torn flesh were scattered near the bombing site, as ambulances and civil defense rushed to evacuate the victims.

The Mieh Mieh camp and the nearby Ein el-Hilweh camp are mainly controlled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' mainstream Fatah group. Madhat was a military, political and security aide to a Palestinian representative in Lebanon, Abbas Zaki, who is close to Abbas.

No one claimed responsibility for the bombing and Lebanese authorities released no official statements.

It was not immediately known if Zaki could have been the target, since he had left the camp only a few hours earlier.

It was also unclear if the blast was related to a reported power struggle among Fatah members in Lebanon.

Madhat was known to have enemies within and outside Fatah, mainly extremist Islamic groups opposing Abbas' peace deals with Israel.

Rivalries and fighting, mainly between Fatah gunmen and extremist Islamic groups in Lebanon's refugee camps, have claimed the lives of scores of Palestinians in the past.

Lebanon has 12 Palestinian refugee camps, which are off limits to authorities under a Lebanon-Palestinian deal. Some fugitives are believed to live inside the teeming Ein el-Hilweh camp, located outside Sidon.