Wednesday 2007-08-15

Lebanese helicopters shell militant strongholds in northern camp

Lebanese military helicopters on Wednesday shelled the strongholds of a group of diehard al-Qaida- inspired militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in the north, the official National News Agency (NNA) reported. The helicopters commenced shelling these strongholds this morning, the NNA said, adding that clashes between soldiers and the Fatah al-Islam militants were taking place in a small area within the Nahr al-Bared camp. The army is closing in on the armed men, it added. On Tuesday, an army helicopter dropped flyers to Fatah al-Islam militants entrenched in a tiny enclave on the Nahr al-Bared camp's southern edge, urging them to surrender and allow their dependents to leave the war zone. The Lebanese army have been battling with Fatah al-Islam militants in the Nahr al-Bared camp, some 12 km north of Tripoli, since May 20. The bloodiest internal violence since the Lebanese 1975-1990 civil war has killed more than 200 people. The army has refused to halt its military offensive before the militants surrender, but the gunmen have vowed to fight to the very end. The Lebanese government lists Fatah al-Islam as a terrorist network aimed at destabilizing Lebanon.

Xinhua

Tuesday 2007-08-14

Surrender, camp militants told

The Lebanese defence ministry yesterday reiterated its call for Islamist militants besieged in a Palestinian refugee camp to surrender, calling their 12-week battle with the army suicidal. The appeal came as army helicopters attacked bunkers of Fatah Al Islam fighters holed up in Nahr Al Bared camp, located near the northern port of Tripoli. “The court system is the quickest way to end the current situation and wasting time and refusing to heed the army’s call to surrender and be fairly judged is suicidal and you alone bear responsibility,” the ministry said in its appeal. It also urged the Al Qaeda-inspired fighters to allow some 100 women and children thought to be still inside the camp to leave. “Let the women and children decide their own fate because holding them is a crime before God and the law,” the statement said. A correspondent earlier watched four helicopters each open fire twice on the tiny sector in the south of the camp where the Islamists have been holding out since May 20. The air raids were the second in two days and were accompanied by firing from Islamist and army positions. Army commander in chief General Michel Sleimane estimates that only 70 Fatah al-Islam fighters are left at the camp, in subterranean shelters that the military is trying to break through. He said the group was planning attacks both in Lebanon and abroad when the army moved in. “It’s a well-trained organisation, equipped with sophisticated arms, including heavy weapons, experienced in handling explosives,” he said. “They have around 100 women and children with them who refuse to leave the camp despite our appeals and different attempts to mediate.” The shadowy militant group has denied charges that it is linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, but has admitted that it shares ideological ties with the network. The Palestinian camps in Lebanon, built from 1948 when thousands fled the newly created Jewish state, have been fortified over the years to make them able to withstand Israeli air raids. But a Lebanese army spokesman said: “These (helicopter) bombardments are very effective. Several shelters have been partly destroyed, but the soldiers have to shift the debris and disarm explosives before they can enter them.”

Agence France Presse

Army tells militants that staying in camp is 'suicidal decision'

The Lebanese Army said on Tuesday that anyone choosing to remain in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp was making a "suicidal decision," as Gazelle light attack helicopters bombed suspected underground bunkers housing Fatah al-Islam militants. "The militants' refusal to surrender is a suicidal decision, for which they bear responsibility," said the army statement. The statement pointed out that the militants and civilians remaining with them in the camp had rejected repeated calls give themselves up in order to spare the lives of the women and children. The army's mention of suicide, however, should be not be read as a signal that troops are planning a major assault to finish off the Islamist gunmen, an army source told The Daily Star on condition of anonymity. The army has been striving since the outbreak of fighting to eliminate all the militants while avoiding civilian casualties, the source added. Tuesday's statement "is not a new decision," the source said. "This is the decision from the beginning." The militants' choice not to surrender means "they are not going to survive," the source added. "They want to stay inside until they get killed." The army could have obliterated Fatah al-Islam fighters long ago, but it has opted because of the civilians to progress slowly through the last roughly 1.5 square kilometers held by the militants, the source added. "We could have bombed everything and put bigger bombs to bomb the underground [bunkers]," he said. "We are not using big attacks. We are using a strategy to finish them off little by little." Tuesday's statement also promised the militants a fair trial if they surrender, a pledge also made in pamphlets dropped by army helicopters onto the militants' camp territory. The leaflets told militants that they were fighting for the wrong cause by battling the Lebanese Army and the Lebanese people, adding that using non-combatants as human shields was a crime "before God and the law." Army commander General Michel Suleiman stressed in a speech on Monday that Fatah al-Islam gunmen had ignored numerous calls to surrender. He estimated that about 70 militants and 100 women and children remained in the camp about 12 kilometers from Tripoli in North Lebanon.

Inside the camp, Gazelle helicopters made bombing runs aimed at underground hide-outs around the Hawuz Mosque at about 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the source said. Each bomb could penetrate three meters into the ground and leave a crater 10 meters in diameter. The French-made aircraft targeted the same bunkers in raids at about 10 p.m. on Monday night. An AFP report said four Gazelles had taken part in Tuesday morning's raids. "These bombardments are very effective," a Lebanese Army spokesman told AFP. "Several shelters have been partly destroyed, but the soldiers have to shift the debris and disarm explosives before they can enter them." Troops were burning down booby-trapped buildings on Tuesday, causing the smoke seen rising from the camp, said The Daily Star's source. The camp's 30,000-plus residents have largely found temporary shelter in the country's 11 other Palestinian refugee camps. A report from the National News Agency (NNA) said Tuesday's bombing was accompanied by artillery barrages and intense fighting between militants and soldiers in a number of camp districts, but the army source said the Gazelle sorties had been the day's only engagement. "What they are saying is not correct," the army source said about the NNA story. Tuesday's events in the camp produced no army casualties, although a funeral was held in the village of Bibnine in Akkar for Corporal Mustafa Mohammad Burghul, who was killed by a Fatah al-Islam sniper on Monday. More than 130 soldiers have been killed in the 12-week-old conflict, along with about 20 civilians, although the exact number of slain Fatah al-Islam members remains uncertain. Fatah al-Islam fired one Katyusha rocket on Tuesday, but the rocket caused no damage as it landed on a beach near Maamari shortly after noon. After four Sidon men confessed yesterday to being active members of a Fatah al-Islam cell there, media reports on Tuesday quoted security sources saying authorities were seeking additional suspects.

The Daily Star

Tuesday 2007-05-22

Nearly 50 are dead in fierce fighting in Lebanon

Lebanese troops blasted a Palestinian refugee camp with artillery and tank fire again Monday, seeking to destroy a militant group with al-Qaida ties and raising fears that Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war could spread in a country with an uneasy balancing act among various sects and factions. The barrage smashed buildings and sent plumes of black smoke towering over the crowded camp on the Mediterranean. The fierce, two-day battle has killed nearly 50 combatants and an unknown number of civilians. Refugees in the Nahr el-Bared camp, on the outskirts of the northern port city of Tripoli, hid in their homes as fighting raged, and Palestinian officials in the camp said nine civilians were killed Monday. Reports from the camp could not be confirmed because officials and reporters could not get inside.

"There are many wounded. We're under siege. There is a shortage of bread, medicine and electricity. There are children under the rubble" of damaged buildings, Sana Abu Faraj, a resident of the camp, told Al-Jazeera television by cellphone. Fighting quieted after nightfall amid attempts by other Palestinian factions to broker a cease-fire. The representative of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, Abu Ahmed Rifai, said Fatah Islam militants pledged to cease firing and withdraw from positions facing Lebanese troops. A senior officer at the Lebanese army command would not say a cease-fire was reached but repeated the military's stance that it will not shoot if it does not come under fire. Raising fears of spreading violence, an explosion went off in a shopping area in a Sunni Muslim sector of Beirut later Monday, wrecking parked cars and injuring four people, a day after a bomb blast in a Christian part of the capital killed a woman. Although there were no claims of responsibility, the confluence of two bombings in as many days while the fighting was going on in Tripoli was highly unusual. All day, automatic gunfire and explosions rocked the Nahr el-Bared camp, which is more like a small town, with more than 31,000 people living in two- or three-story white buildings on densely packed narrow streets alongside mosques, schools and businesses...

Associated Press

Fighting in refugee camp subsides

Battles engulfed a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon on Monday in the second day of fighting between the Lebanese army and al-Qaida-inspired fighters which has killed 79 people. Black smoke billowed from the Nahr al-Bared camp, home to 40,000 Palestinians, as tanks shelled positions held by Fatah al-Islam fighters hitting back with machinegun and grenade fire. In the capital Beirut, a bomb rocked a shopping area in the mainly Sunni Muslim district of Verdun wounding at least seven people, security sources and witnesses said. Fighting subsided in the afternoon amid efforts to allow an aid convoy into the coastal camp in north Lebanon, but clashes resumed before the UN and Red Cross vehicles could move in.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government, at a meeting on Monday to discuss the fighting, stressed the need "to put an end" to Fatah al-Islam, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said. The decision came after a representative of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group told Reuters a truce had been agreed, although sporadic gunfire could still be heard into the night. The violence showed how fragile security remains in Lebanon, racked by political and sectarian tensions since last year's Israeli-Hezbollah war in the south and by a series of unsolved assassinations before and after Syria's 2005 troop pullout. The conflict is Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war. Palestinians in the camp said thousands had fled their homes on the edges of Nahr al-Bared, where fighting was most intense, to shelter deeper inside the camp. More than 150 people had been wounded and dozens of homes destroyed, Palestinian sources said. "We are under siege," Palestinian Hisham Yacoub said by telephone from within the camp. "There's no water, no electricity or milk for the children," said Mohammed Abu Laila, also talking by phone from the camp. Abu Salim, a spokesman for Fatah al-Islam, threatened to take the fighting to other parts of the country if the army did not ease its bombardment. "If the situation stays like this we will not be silent and will definitely move the battle outside (the nearby city) of Tripoli," he told Reuters by telephone. At least 20 gunmen, 32 soldiers and 27 civilians have been killed since the fighting erupted early on Sunday. Fifty-five soldiers have been wounded...

Reuters

Gunbattles erupts in Lebanon for third day

Gunbattles raged between Lebanese troops and Islamist militiamen on Tuesday, with both sides vowing to pursue the fighting that has killed 58 people in the last three days. Black plumes of smoke billowed into the sky as troops fired tank shells and artillery at positions of Al-Qaeda inspired militants from Fatah al-Islam in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al-Bared in northern Lebanon. It is the bloodiest internal feuding in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war and has triggered deep concerns about the security of a country still battling deep sectarian and political tensions. The resumption of fighting shattered an overnight lull and followed indirect negotiations to try to hammer out a ceasefire amid mounting fears of a humanitarian crisis for people trapped inside Nahr al-Bared. Fatah Al-Islam remained defiant, with spokesman Abu Salim Taha insisting in a telephone call with AFP that "if the army continues its attacks, our fighters are ready to fight until the last drop of blood." And the group, which on Monday warned it would take its fight beyond Nahr al-Bared and the nearby Mediterranean port city of Tripoli, also claimed it was behind two bomb attacks in Beirut over the past two nights. In the face of the continuing battles, the Lebanese government said at meeting late on Monday it would crush the "terrorist phenomenon" of Fatah Al-Islam with all its might. "(The government) is determined to respond to any aggression and put a final end to this dangerous phenomenon... which has threatened to widen the scope of the aggression," said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi. "This phenomenon which attacked the Lebanese army and other security forces is harmful to all of Lebanon, its people, security and stability, and is a permanent threat to the Palestinian people." He said identity checks of the militants killed have revealed that most of them are not Palestinians, but have different nationalities. Economy Minister Sami Haddad called in an interview with CNN for world help to the Lebanese forces "both logistically and with military equipment" in order to win the battle against Fatah Al-Islam. The fragility of the situation in Lebanon was underscored by the second bomb blast in the Beirut on Monday which injured 10 people, the day after a one woman was killed in the a similar attack in the capital. A total of 58 people have been killed in the fighting unleashed early Sunday around the camp and in Tripoli. Hospital sources said 30 soldiers, 17 Islamist fighters, 10 Palestinian civilians and a Lebanese civilian have died. Aid organisations have voiced fears of a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished camp, a coastal shantytown of narrow alleyways is home to about 31,000 of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon. Doctors described seeing bodies strewn on the streets of Nahr al-Bared on Monday, when nine refugees were killed in the Lebanese bombardment, while residents are reporting a lack of electricity and water shortages. The camp is one of about 12 in Lebanon but under a four-decade old agreement it remains remains outside the authority of the government, creating a security vacuum that allows armed Palestinian factions to take control. The international community has condemned the violence and voiced support for the Lebanese government's efforts to restore order. "It would appear that the Lebanese security forces are working in a legitimate manner to provide a secure and stable environment for the Lebanese people, in the wake of provocations and attacks," the US State Department said. UN chief Ban Ki-moon regards the Fatah al-Islam actions as "an attack on Lebanon's stability and sovereignty," the secretary general's spokeswoman said. But Syria saw the turmoil as a bid to prod the UN Security Council into setting up the international tribunal to try suspects in the murder of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, for which Damascus has been widely blamed. Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari also denied any ties between Damascus and Fatah al-Islam, whose Palestinian leader Shaker al-Abssi was released from prison in Syria last year. Lebanon's Western-backed government has been paralysed for months by feuding between opponents of former power broker Damascus and pro-Syrian factions including Hezbollah, largely over the creation of the court. MP Wael Abu Faour, a member of Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, told AFP that the Beirut blasts "confirm what the Syrians want: that the establishment of the tribunal will mean instability in Lebanon." In Beirut, traffic was slow as many residents stayed home and kept their children from school after latest bombings in the capital, shaken by a string of attacks against Damascus critics over the past two years. The government also called on businesses and institutions to observe a 10-minute work stoppage at noon (0900 GMT) to mourn the military and civilian deaths.

Agence France Presse

Monday 2007-05-21

Where conflict rages

A new front in Lebanon's simmering political conflict erupted Sunday in the northern city of Tripoli, where running battles between the Lebanese army and a radical new Palestinian organization said to have ties to al-Qaida killed at least 39 people. In the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's civil war 17 years ago, the army battled militants throughout the day in the streets of the port city and on the edges of the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el-Bared, which late last year fell under the control of the radical group Fateh al-Islam. The fighting started when Lebanese soldiers pursued a group of men suspected of involvement in an overnight bank robbery to a Tripoli apartment building that turned out to be occupied by dozens of Fateh al-Islam fighters. As the army laid siege to the building, militants broke out of the nearby refugee camp and attacked army positions around it, seizing at least one position and prompting the army to open fire on the camp with tanks and artillery. By nightfall, the violence appeared to have subsided and the army had restored control.

Times Wires

39 die in Lebanon as army battles militants

After spending hours huddled in basements and bathrooms as gunfire raged nearby, hundreds of Lebanese in this northern port city emerged to cheer on army troops who battled a shadowy Islamic militant group. The army's steady barrage of artillery and heavy machine gunfire pounded positions of Fatah Islam militants holed up in apartment buildings and a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, where smoke billowed as the attack wore on. "We strongly back the Lebanese army troops and what they are doing," said Abed Attar, a Tripoli resident who stood watching soldiers firing tank shells into the camp, which is home to 30,000 Palestinian refugees and the base of Fatah Islam, a group suspected of links to al-Qaida. The applause for the army's tough response was a sign of the long-standing tensions that remain between some Lebanese and the estimated 350,000 Palestinians who have taken refuge in Lebanon since the creation of Israel in 1948. The gunbattle killed at least 22 soldiers and 17 militants in the deadliest internal fighting in Lebanon in years. The fighting left apartments blackened by rocket fire. Bullet-ridden cars littered the streets. The bodies of dead militants could be seen amid the debris.

The clashes added further instability to a country already mired in its worst political crisis between the Western-backed government and Hezbollah-led opposition since the end of the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war. It was the most serious fight the army had engaged in Lebanon in more than a decade and the worst violence to hit Tripoli in two decades. In Beirut late Sunday, an explosion across the street from a busy shopping mall killed a 63-year-old woman and injured 12 other people in the Christian sector of the Lebanese capital, police said. Beirut and surrounding suburbs have seen a series of explosions in the last two years, many targeting Christian areas. Authorities blamed Fatah Islam for Feb. 13 bombings of commuter buses that killed three people, but the group denied involvement. The violence in Tripoli began after a gunbattle raged in one neighborhood of the predominantly Sunni city, known to have Islamic fundamentalists, witnesses said. Fighting spread after police raided suspected Fatah Islam hideouts in several buildings in Tripoli, searching for men wanted in a recent bank robbery. A gunbattle ensued and troops were called in to help the police.

Associated Press

Lebanese troops, militants clash for second day

Lebanon, May 21 (Reuters) - Lebanese troops fought with al Qaeda-linked militants around a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon for a second straight day on Monday, security sources said. They said soldiers, who had tightened their grip around Nahr al-Bared camp after battles that killed 50 people on Sunday, were shelling positions of Fatah al-Islam at the entrances of the camp. There was no immediate word on casualties from the new fighting.

Reuters