International   

Fighting between Lebanese army, militants intensifies

Atul Aneja

Government pledges to "finish off" Islamists

DUBAI: Fighting between the Lebanese army and Islamist militants entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon has intensified.

The refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared has been surrounded. The army is shelling the camp sheltering around 31,000 residents, where militants from Fatah al-Islam are holed up.

The group, which acknowledges that it is sympathetic to Al-Qaeda, has declared that it was not ready for any compromise. "It is a life-or-death battle. Their aim is to wipe out Fatah al-Islam. We will respond and we know how to respond," Fatah al-Islam spokesman Abu Salim was quoted as saying. He said the militants would step up attacks using rockets and artillery if the bombardment of the Nahr El-Bared camp did not stop. More than 50 persons have already been killed in the fighting, which began on Sunday.

The group has also threatened to widen the conflict by igniting violence in other refugee camps — a total of 11 — outside the northern city of Tripoli. Tensions are already running high in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, located in the port city of Sidon. The Islamist militant group Jund al-Sham is active in this camp. A tussle between the secular Fatah and Jund al-Sham is already visible there. Jund al-Sham killed two Fatah members on May 7.

As tensions simmered in Tripoli, another bomb explosion rocked Beirut late on Monday night. The powerful blast in the upmarket Sunni neighbourhood of Verdun caused extensive damage to apartment buildings and set several cars on fire.

On Sunday, an explosion in a shopping mall in a Christian locality had killed a 63-year old woman. Fatah al-Islam had initially claimed responsibility for Monday's blast, but later retracted from its claim.

Meanwhile, a Cabinet meeting in Beirut decided to "finish off" the militants in the Nahr El-Bared camp. However, the army has so far not entered the camp to flush out the militants.

Amid the fighting, the humanitarian situation inside the Nahr El-Bared camp has deteriorated. Electricity has been cut off and water is in short supply. An unknown number of civilians have been affected by the violence. Aid agencies have been seeking a secure corridor in order to reach out to the injured and carry out other humanitarian work.

The stand-off has drawn the European Union's foreign policy head, Javier Solana, to Beirut. Some Lebanese politicians are pinning the blame for the violence on Syria, which has denied the charges.

Syria's ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, has said that his country did not have any link with Fatah al-Islam. Instead, he claimed that Syria had jailed some members of this group because of their support for Al-Qaeda.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Norway denies report on missing passports
Fighting between Lebanese army, militants intensifies
A jolt to PML (Q)
Russia says "no" to extradition
U.K. for extradition of former KGB man for Litvinenko murder
U.K. police test airborne spy
Memorial damaged
Abel Prize presented

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu