Everyone knows that robbing a bank can be dangerous, but most people don't foresee a bank robbery igniting a civil war. But in Lebanon, things like that can happen, especially when the robbers belong to an organization with links to Syria, the Lebanese government's nemesis par excellence.

So, in reality, it might even seem logical that when the Lebanese government raided an apartment in the Lebanese city of Tripoli at 2 a.m. Sunday and found out it was an office of Fatah al-Islam (FAI), a group thought to have links to Syria, things quickly spiraled out of control.

A gun fight broke out in the apartment and not long after, the office was secured by Lebanese police. FAI members attacked Lebanese army checkpoints that surround Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, where the shadowy group is based. The Lebanese army responded to the attacks with tanks, artillery and machine guns, which they fired at suspected FAI positions.

In the ensuing hours and continuing at press time, Lebanese soldiers, FAI militiamen and unarmed civilians were being killed. Children are purportedly trapped under the rubble of a building in Nahr el-Bared that collapsed after being hit by artillery fire.

People have started to ask the central questions about FAI: Who are these guys? Who do they represent? Who else can be deemed culpable for this event so real scores (Pro-West Lebanese government vs. Syria and Hezbollah; the West vs. al-Qaida; Iraqi insurgents vs. America) can be settled?

By Sunday night, many American media outlets, including The New York Times and L.A. Times had already branded FAI as a group with links to al-Qaida. However the national police commander of Lebanon disagreed.

"They are not al-Qaida. This is imitation al-Qaida, a 'Made in Syria' one," The Guardian reported the police commander as saying.

U.S. State Department Spokesperson Sean McCormack told reporters Yesterday that the group has al-Qaida affiliations that may be so, but let's examine the evidence. McCormack makes his claim based off the fact that FAI's leader, Shakir al-Absi, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of former U.S. diplomat Laurence Michael Foley in Jordan in 2002.

The alleged link between al-Absi and al-Qaida is that al-Qaida's former commander in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who was killed in a U.S. airstrike June 7, 2006), reportedly worked with al-Absi in planning the assassination of Foley. Long story short, there are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up. But because Homeland Security classifies every scrap of evidence, it's hard for fact-checkers to tell if FAI's leader actually has links to al-Qaida.

Nevertheless, Syria's ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Ja'afari, seems to agree with the State Department. Ja'afari told Reuters that several members of FAI had spent "three or four years" in Syrian jails "a couple of years ago" because of ties to al-Qaida, but were later released and left the country.

"They are fighting on behalf of al-Qaida," Ja'afari said.

No one wants anything to do with this. Syria doesn't want to get involved in a war that supposedly links them to al-Qaida, so it's denying links to FAI. Why the Syrians freed some of FAI's members knowing they had links to al-Qaida is another story, but for now, it seems Syria is distancing itself.

Bottom line: A small-time heist in Tripoli almost caused a civil war in Lebanon, which could easily have become a second front in the U.S.-Iraq war against al-Qaida.

It's scary that an unknown group in Lebanon could be branded as al-Qaida, and 24 hours later a large war could brew up over evidence that's non-verifiable and classified. That's worse than how the American people got tricked on WMDs and invading Iraq.