LEBANON: Lebanese army holds funeral for soldier killed at Ain al-Hilweh camp as authorities try to bring an end to fighting

Record ID: 374888

  • Title: LEBANON: Lebanese army holds funeral for soldier killed at Ain al-Hilweh camp as authorities try to bring an end to fighting
  • Date: 4th June 2007
  • Summary: (W3) SIDON , LEBANON (JUNE 4, 2007) (REUTERS) MILITARY CEREMONY OUTSIDE SIDON HOSPITAL FOR LEBANESE SOLDIER KILLED IN FIGHTING AT AIN AL-HILWEH CAMP SOLDIERS CARRYING WREATH/ MUSIC VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS CARRYING COFFIN OF THEIR COLLEAGUE KILLED IN CLASHES AT AIN AL-HILWEH COFFIN DRIVING OFF
  • Embargoed: 19th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVAATNJIV09KEPTFNVD64MXK8D8C
  • Story Text: The Lebanese army held a funeral for a soldier killed at Ain al-Hilweh camp fighting , as Islamists expanded their confrontation with Lebanon army. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora held talks with Muslim clerics from Sidon to discuss ways to handle the crisis. The Lebanese army on Monday (June 4) held a funeral for one of its soldiers killed in fighting with Islamist militants in southern Lebanon on Sunday night.
    Islamist gunmen killed two Lebanese soldiers at Ain al-Hilwa refugee camp in the first fatal spillover of fighting between the army and islamist fighters in the north.
    Military sources said two fighters of the Sunni militant group Jund al-Sham were also killed in rifle, grenade and mortar exchanges that erupted at an entrance to the camp near the southern port city of Sidon.
    Three soldiers and two civilians were also hurt in the fighting, which began on Sunday (June 3) night and calmed later on Monday.
    The clashes were the latest jolt to stability in Lebanon, where a political crisis pitting the Western-backed government against Syria's Lebanese allies has paralysed state institutions since last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
    Hundreds of civilians fled Ain al-Hilweh, a sprawling shantytown perched on a hillside above Sidon, 42 km (26 miles) south of Beirut. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction dominates the camp, but small Islamist groups have a foothold there and in several other refugee camps in Lebanon.
    The Ain al-Hilweh clashes were the first to erupt in other Palestinian camps in Lebanon, where few people support Fatah al-Islam. Its pro-Qaeda ideology of global jihad is at odds with the national struggle waged by the Islamist Hamas movement, as well as with the secular ideas of Fatah and leftist groups.
    Palestinian factions held emergency talks with the army command in Sidon to ease tensions. Jund al-Sham fighters then ceded their positions to gunmen from other Islamist groups.
    Jund al-Sham, made up of a few dozen Palestinian and Lebanese militants, has sided with Fatah al-Islam, though they do not appear to have organisational links. Its fighters attacked the army just hours after a Fatah al-Islam commander named Abu Riyadh, who had previously belonged to Jund al-Sham, was killed in Nahr al-Bared.
    The army has battled one such Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, for more than two weeks at the Nahr al-Bared outside Tripoli, 100 km (60 miles) north of the Lebanese capital.
    The violence at Nahr al-Bared is Lebanon's worst internal fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war. At least 113 people have died and about 25,000 of the camp's 40,000 refugees have fled.
    Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government sees itself at war with terrorists backed by Damascus, which rejects the charge. Secular Syria says Fatah al-Islam's leaders are on its wanted list and that such groups threaten its own security.
    Eleven soldiers have been killed in Nahr al-Bared since Friday, bringing the military death toll there to 45, while more than 20 people -- militants and civilians -- were killed. Fatah al-Islam said it lost five fighters and about 36 in total.
    While the army has not entered the camp's official boundaries, it has captured the militants' positions on its outskirts, confining militants to about a third of the camp.
    A 1969 agreement prevents the army from entering Lebanon's 12 Palestinian camps, home to 400,000 refugees.
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