LEBANON: Lebanese Army battles Islamist group in northern refugee camp for second day

Record ID: 345695

  • Title: LEBANON: Lebanese Army battles Islamist group in northern refugee camp for second day
  • Date: 21st May 2007
  • Summary: (BN07) NAHR AL-BARED CAMP, LEBANON (MAY 21, 2007) (REUTERS) SMOKE RISING FROM NAHR AL-BARED CAMP VARIOUS OF SMOKE RISING FROM AREAS BEING SHELLED /AUDIO OF EXPLOSIONS AND GUNFIRE LEBANESE SOLDIERS FIRING AT FATAH AL-ISLAM POSITIONS IN CAMP SOLDIER WALKING ON STREET SOLDIERS FIRING AND AUDIO OF GUNFIRE VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS TAKING POSITIONS NEAR TANK IN GRASS SMOKE RISING AS TANK SHELLS CAMP VARIOUS OF SMOKE RISING
  • Embargoed: 5th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA6J4Y1J31SDGX7NM3GII2PT1LR
  • Story Text: Tank shells crash into a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on the second day of clashes between fighters of the little-known Fatah al-Islam group and the Lebanese army.
    Lebanese troops sealed off all entrances to a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Monday (May 21) and shelled positions held by fighters of the Fatah al-Islam militant group, with no immediate word of casualties.
    Plumes of smoke rose into the sky as tank shells pounded the Nahr al-Bared camp where some 40,000 refugees live.
    Militants fired grenades and machineguns at the army posts, witnesses said.
    Palestinian sources in the coastal camp said the shelling killed two civilians.
    The clashes entered their second day after at least 27 soldiers, 15 militants and 15 civilians were killed in clashes on Sunday (May 20), the worst internal fighting since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.
    Witnesses said clerics called by loudspeakers for the army to stop shelling the camp, one of several in Lebanon that house about 400,000 Palestinian refugees, part of an exodus prompted by the 1948 war that followed Israel's creation.
    Lebanese ministers say Fatah al-Islam is a tool used by Syria to cause instability in an effort to derail U.N. efforts to set up an international court to try suspects in the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
    Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni Muslim group inspired by al Qaeda, was believed to have only a few hundred fighters, but suppressing it was no easy task for Lebanon's over-stretched army of 40,000 troops.
    The army may not enter the country's 12 Palestinian refugee camps under a 1969 Arab accord. Palestinian fighters carry weapons inside the camps, despite a 2004 U.N. Security Council resolution calling for all militias in Lebanon to be disarmed.
    Commentators on both sides of Lebanon's political divide criticised authorities for failing to tackle Fatah al-Islam previously.
    RZ/AD
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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