Career
Al-Abbsi and other defendants were also charged with bombing two civilian buses on the eve of a Cedar Revolution rally planned to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. On September 2, 2007, al-Abssi was allegedly killed in the north of Tripoli. A body believed to be al-Abassi's has undergone DNA and blood tests, and the Lebanese army confirmed it to be his.
A total of 39 Islamist militants were killed by Lebanese troops in a pre-dawn attempt to escape from the Palestinian refugee camp in which they had been besieged for three months by the Lebanese army. However, a DNA test carried out on the body did not confirm his death. The body discovered belonged to a man in his thirties, while Absi was fifty-six at the time.
In October 2008, al-Abssi was reported captured in Syria. However, other reports had him still on the run. On 10 December 2008 the group said Shaker al-Abssi and two other members had been ambushed by the Syrian security forces in the small town of Jermana, south of Damascus, and that he had been killed or arrested.