After fighting all week, the Lebanese military has still not been able to overcome the Islamist terrorist group holed up in a Palestinian camp using refugees as its cover. It appears Syria and Iran might have a lot to do with that.

Fighting broke out again Thursday night following a tenuous truce between the Lebanese Army and the Fatah al-Islam (Victory of Islam) terrorist group, which have been fighting since Sunday near Tripoli in northern Lebanon. Around 70 people have been killed so far, and thousands have fled the area.

debkafile reports that the reason the Lebanese Army is having so much difficulty is that Syrian-backed and Iranian-financed radical Palestinian groups have sent in gunmen to assist Fatah al-Islam. There is much at stake for the Lebanese government, whose grip on power is tenuous at best. debkafile reported Thursday:

[T]he army’s failure against the Palestinian extremists in Nahr al-Bared would detract from its authority in the whole of Lebanon. It would have grave repercussions for the stability of government of anti-Syrian Fouad Siniora and its ability to stand up to Hezbollah and pro-Syrian forces.

This is exactly what radical Islamic forces, driven by Syria and Iran, want to do: topple the moderate, U.S.-backed government of Lebanon. It is no wonder—despite denials—evidence strongly implicates Syria and Iran as supporting the standoff.

Since anti-Syrian reformers gained control of the Lebanese government in the spring of 2005, Syria and Iran have been working to undermine the authority of that government. Their primary, and certainly most visible, tool has been the notorious terrorist group Hezbollah. The Israel-Lebanon war last summer in particular gave Hezbollah opportunity to gain further ground in Lebanon. Then the resignation of five Hezbollah-allied Shiite politicians and the assassination of another government minister toward the end of 2006, followed by mass Hezbollah-led public protests, almost toppled the Lebanese government.

View the current conflict in this context, and it seems impossible that Syria and Iran would not have some level of involvement.

Fatah al-Islam consists almost solely of non-Lebanese fighters and, as Amir Taheri writing for the New York Post points out, there are only two possible ways for these terrorists to enter Lebanon: through Israel or Syria. “It’s not hard to imagine how these guys got to Tripoli,” Taheri wrote. “And is it possible that someone in Damascus would want to push Lebanon toward a new civil war without coordinating with Syria’s principal ally, the Islamic Republic in Tehran?” (May 23).

Suspicion over Syria’s involvement is certainly validated by the timing of the outbreak of violence—just as Western nations were about to circulate a proposal at the United Nations Security Council for an international tribunal to be set up to try those implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 and other political assassinations. Syria has fought for over two years to throw a spanner in the works to prevent such a tribunal being set up—undoubtedly because the finger of blame will end up pointing firmly back at itself.

Are Iran and Syria showing the West they have more tools at their disposal than simply Hezbollah? Is the unrest caused by Fatah al-Islam a warning from Iran that if it doesn’t get what it wants from the U.S. out of negotiations over Iraq, then it has a multitude of options at its disposal to cause havoc across the Middle East?

Iran is intent on increasing its relevance in the region, as it is doing by supporting the Gaza rocket attacks on Israel. Not only do news reports indicate that Iran is complicit in the violence erupting in northern Lebanon, history and logic confirm that Tehran, the king of Islamist terrorism and greatest terrorist-sponsoring nation in the world, is behind the violence.