Arabiya TV says Lebanese troops assault cameraman

DUBAI, June 1 (Reuters) Lebanese soldiers assaulted a Palestinian cameraman working for Al Arabiya television as he was filming clashes between the army and al Qaeda-inspired militants today, the Dubai-based channel said.

''Khaled Mousa, an Arabiya cameraman, has been beaten up. There are visible (marks of) at least two punches that I saw on his face ... He is very angry,'' said Rima Maktabi, an Arabiya reporter in a live transmission from Nahr al-Bared camp.

''We are journalists doing our jobs. Khaled Mousa is just a journalist, nothing else. He was trying to film from a close distance and he was not trying to film army locations.'' The television channel said Mousa was held briefly by the army.

Arabiya earlier showed footage of a soldier asking one of its reporters to stop filming during a live transmission from another location at the camp where the militants are holed up.

That reporter said later he was taken to an army post and described the army's approach as ''polite''.

At least two Lebanese soldiers and 12 other people died in fierce battles raging around the camp in the north on Friday as Lebanese troops closed in on the Fatah al-Islam fighters.

The army has been fighting the militants -- many of them foreign fighters, Lebanese authorities say -- since May 20 in Lebanon's worst internal violence since its 1975-1990 civil war.

Not including Friday's deaths, at least 84 people -- 35 soldiers, 29 militants and 20 civilians -- have been killed in the fighting.

Amnesty International last week criticised the Lebanese army's use of artillery, tank fire, and other heavy weapons against heavily populated areas as it tried to take control of the camp.

REUTERS AM KN2132