Ok, então eu acho que o problema é como você define os ids do seu .tab-pane. No momento, não existe, mas não há "eco", então nada está sendo emitido lá.
Eu montei uma demonstração de trabalho, mudei parte do seu código, mas coisas muito pequenas que tentei comentar:
<!-- START OF YOUR CODE -->
<ul class="nav nav-tabs" id="lb-tabs">
<?php
// I just made an array with some data, since I don't have your data source
$sqlCat = array(
array('tab_title'=>'Home'),
array('tab_title'=>'Profile'),
array('tab_title'=>'Messages'),
array('tab_title'=>'Settings')
);
//set the current tab to be the first one in the list.... or whatever one you specify
$current_tab = $sqlCat[0]['tab_title'];
?>
<?php
foreach ($sqlCat as $row):
//set the class to "active" for the active tab.
$tab_class = ($row['tab_title']==$current_tab) ? 'active' : '' ;
echo '<li class="'.$tab_class.'"><a href="#' . urlencode($row['tab_title']) . '" data-toggle="tab">' .
$row['tab_title'] . ' </a></li>';
endforeach;
?>
</ul><!-- /nav-tabs -->
<div class="tab-content">
<?php foreach ($sqlCat as $row2):
$tab = $row2['tab_title'];
//set the class to "active" for the active content.
$content_class = ($tab==$current_tab) ? 'active' : '' ;
?>
<div class="tab-pane <?php echo $content_class;?>" id="<?php echo $tab; //-- this right here is from yoru code, but there was no "echo" ?>">
<div class="links">
<ul class="col">
<?php
// Again, I just made an array with some data, since I don't have your data source
$items = array(
array('title'=>'Home','tab_link'=>'http://home.com'),
array('title'=>'Profile','tab_link'=>'http://profile.com'),
array('title'=>'Messages','tab_link'=>'http://messages.com'),
array('title'=>'Settings','tab_link'=>'http://settings.com'),
array('title'=>'Profile','tab_link'=>'http://profile2.com'),
array('title'=>'Profile','tab_link'=>'http://profile3.com'),
);
// you have a while loop here, my array doesn't have a "fetch" method, so I use a foreach loop here
foreach($items as $item) {
//output the links with the title that matches this content's tab.
if($item['title'] == $tab){
echo '<li>' . $item['title'] . ' - '. $item['tab_link'] .'</li>';
}
}
?>
</ul>
</div>
</div><!-- /tab-pane -->
<?php endforeach; ?>
</div><!-- /tab-content -->
<!-- END OF YOUR CODE -->
