LEBANON: Palestinians flee as Lebanon army set to storm camp

Record ID: 375050

  • Title: LEBANON: Palestinians flee as Lebanon army set to storm camp
  • Date: 12th July 2007
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF THE CHECKPOINT AND REFUGEES WALKING OUT OF CAMP
  • Embargoed: 27th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Reuters ID: LVA6CT2YAGXJ28KANZR3WUVLAWC8
  • Story Text: Palestinian refugees flee the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp as Lebanese troops prepare to launch a final assault against Islamist militants barricaded in the camp. About 160 Palestinians fled a refugee camp in north Lebanon on Wednesday (July 11) as the Lebanese army prepared to launch a final assault against al Qaeda-inspired militants holed up inside.
    Troops have been battling Fatah al-Islam fighters at Nahr al-Bared for nearly eight weeks in Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war. A total of 205 people have been killed.
    The army seized all the militants' positions on the outskirts of the camp last month but refrained from entering its official boundaries.
    A 1969 Arab agreement had banned Lebanese security forces from entering Palestinian camps. The agreement was annulled by the Lebanese parliament in the mid 1980s but the accord effectively stayed in place.
    Security and political sources said the army was concerned it was being dragged into a war of attrition with the militants who have dug into the camp's narrow alleys. Troops decided to move in to crush the militants after they refused repeated calls for surrender, the sources said.
    Palestinian sources said some of the last remaining civilians in the camp left on Wednesday ahead of the expected assault. Local representatives of Fatah and other factions of the Palestine Liberation Organisation also left.
    Witnesses said some two dozen men who left the camp were taken by the army to a nearby barracks for questioning. Red Cross sources said a total of 161 people, including women and children, left on Wednesday.
    Sources said the army deployed extra troops in the area and was expected to use helicopter gunships and naval boats as well as tanks and heavy artillery in any assault on the coastal encampment.
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