AUAD v. BULGARIA JUDGMENT 27 2. International Crisis Group: Nurturing Instability: Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugee Camps (19 February 2009) 76. The International Crisis Group is a non-governmental organisation based in Brussels. Its stated aim is to “prevent and resolve deadly conflict”. It has field representations in, inter alia, Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem. 77. In a comprehensive report on the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon (Nurturing Instability: Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugee Camps, issued on 19 February 2009) it described in detail the main political actors in the camps, the situation in each of them, the evolution of Lebanese-Palestinian relations since 1948, the status of the refugees, the inter-factional conflicts in the camps, the conflicts within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Fatah, the failures in the management of the camps, and the spread of jihadism in them. The relevant parts of the report read as follows: “A number of analysts argued that power struggles within Fatah and widespread corruption within the movement are a reason for growing chaos within the camps. They have undermined the credibility and effectiveness of important institutions, such as the Armed Struggle Organisation and contributed to security breakdowns. Perhaps most important, neither the PLO nor Fatah has been able to deal effectively with the challenge of jihadi groups that reject the organisation’s nationalist project, strategy and alliances. In Ain al-Helweh for example, a conflict between two Fatah leaders significantly weakened the movement. Crisis Group interviews, Palestinian officials and residents, Beirut and Palestinian camps, April-December 2008. Some observers believe that violent acts in Ain al-Helweh attributed to jihadis were perpetrated by Fatah members opposed to [Abbas] Zaki [, a local Fatah leader]. ... This view was echoed by other Palestinian and Lebanese officials and sheikhs. ...” 78. In relation to jihadism in the camps, the report noted the following: “By the late 1980s, several converging factors promoted the rise of a salafist jihadi current in the camps: the absence of any dominant political force on the Lebanese Palestinian scene; the camps’ seclusion and isolation from the rest of the country; deteriorating living conditions; and the wider spread of Islamism throughout the Middle East. The collapse of the peace process in the late 1990s intensified the process. Taking advantage of young refugees’ identity crisis, socioeconomic despair and leadership vacuum, groups such as Jund al-Sham, Usbat al-Ansar, Usbat al-Nour, al-Haraka al-Islamiyya al-Mujahida and, more recently, Fatah al-Islam, prospered. This was particularly true in the North, a traditional Sunni stronghold which lacks a powerful Lebanese leadership, and in Ain al-Helweh, which – unlike the other camps – is not under any single faction’s control. In Ain al-Helweh in particular, jihadi groups presented themselves as alternatives to a PLO leadership viewed by many as discredited and corrupt and which the Islamists accused of capitulating to Israel and the West by renouncing Palestinian rights, notably the right of return. ...