GAZA CITY, 25 May 2007 — The Palestinian authorities have no links with the shadowy Islamist group locked in a deadly showdown with the Lebanese Army, President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday.

“We have nothing at all to do with those they call Fatah Al-Islam,” Abbas told a press conference in Gaza City with visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. “We do not approve of the actions by this group,” he said.

Abbas, who heads the Fatah party in the Palestinian territories, said the authorities would send humanitarian aid to the refugees of the besieged camp of Nahr Al-Bared in Lebanon’s north, where the extremists and the army fought deadly battles this week.

Fatah Al-Islam itself has denied any links to “parties and states outside Lebanon.” The group’s leader, Shaker Abssi, is a Palestinian, born in the West Bank town of Jericho in 1955. He is said to be linked to the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian-born extremist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US air strike in 2006.

Abssi, the head of a Islamist militia locked in a deadly showdown with the Lebanese army, is a “decent guy” whose goal in life is to liberate Jerusalem, his brother said yesterday.

“There has been a lot of talk about Shaker. It is said he is a terrorist but in fact he is a decent guy... who has never hurt anyone,” Abdelrazzaq Abssi, an orthopedic surgeon who lives in Jordan, said in a telephone interview.

Shaker Abssi, now squarely in Lebanon’s sights after three days of ferocious gunbattles between government troops and his Fatah Al-Islam, is a father of seven who trained as a fighter pilot in eastern Europe, his brother said. “Shaker is a normal guy, he is very smart, brave and generous whose hobbies are playing tennis, swimming and chess,” he said.

“He always dreamt of Palestine and to liberate Jerusalem. That was the most important thing in his life.” Shaker Abssi’s group — said to be ideologically inspired by the Al-Qaeda terror network of Osama Bin Laden — first came to public attention in November when Lebanese authorities arrested two militants.