Osbat al-Nour

In May 2003 fighting broke out between members of Osbat al-Nour and Fatah militia members in the south Lebanon Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh as part of an ongoing series of battles for control of the Palestinian refugee camp.[2]

A serious clash took place on 17 May, after the near-fatal shooting of Osbat al-Nour leader Abdullah Shraidi,[3] in which one of Abdullah's bodyguards and a bystander were killed. The shooting occurred while they were returning from the funeral of Ibrahim Shraidi, a family relative though a member of Fatah, who had been gunned down by an unknown assailant.[4] About 200 Osbat al-Nour fundamentalist fighters attacked Fatah offices at Ain al-Hilweh. Eight people were killed (included six members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement) and 25 wounded in the fighting. Schools in the Ain al-Hilweh camp were shut and most stores kept their shutters down at the height of the fighting, which provoked an exodus by hundreds of camp residents.[5] Two months after the ambush Abdullah Shraidi died from wounds received during the attack.[3] Fatah agreed to a ceasefire after failing to defeat Osbat al-Nour in the camp.[3]

Osbat al-Nour is said to be an offshoot of the larger Osbat al-Ansar, which is on the United States list of terrorist groups because of its alleged links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.[6]