Lebanon camp battles kill relief workers, soldiers

Nahr Al-Bared, Lebanon, June 12: Four Lebanese soldiers and two relief workers were killed in fierce fighting today between the Lebanese army and al Qaeda-inspired militants at a Palestinian refugee camp.

A Palestinian cleric trying to mediate an end to the fighting between the army and the Fatah al-Islam group was also wounded at the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon.

Security sources said two members of the Lebanese Red Cross were killed and a third was wounded when they were hit by a shell. A military source said four soldiers were also killed in the fighting.

At least 136 people have been killed, including 60 soldiers, in three weeks of fighting, the worst internal clashes since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Eleven soldiers died and more than 100 were wounded in battles at the weekend alone.

The fighting has further undermined stability in Lebanon, already paralysed by a seven-month-old political crisis.

Red Cross workers, along with other local and international aid agencies, almost every day try to take in medical and food supplies to the camp and help civilians leave.

In a separate incident, Sheikh Mohammad al-Hajj, a Palestinian cleric, was shot in the thigh by a sniper after he entered the camp to hold talks with the militants on ways to end the 23-day-old conflict.

''I'm alright. The (peace) initiative will continue ... to stop the bloodletting,'' Hajj told reporters at a hospital in the nearby city of Tripoli before he was taken to the operating room to stitch up his wound.

It was not clear who had shot him.

Artillery And Morters

A cloud of smoke hung overhead as scores of heavy artillery rounds crashed into the camp, while tank and heavy machinegun fire strafed suspected militant hideouts. The militants fired mortar bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.

The military source said the army confiscated papers from the house of Shaker al-Abssi, the leader of Fatah al-Islam, on the outskirts of the camp before blowing it up.

Rescue workers have been unable to give an accurate death toll because of the difficulty of moving in the camp - a sprawling warren of alleyways on the Mediterranean - but at least 42 militants and 33 civilians have been killed.

The army says the militants triggered the conflict by attacking its positions around the camp and on the outskirts of the nearby city of Tripoli. Fatah al-Islam says it acted in self defence and has vowed to fight to the death.

Deadly clashes erupted last week in the south at the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, and five bombs have targeted civilian areas in and near Beirut since May 20.

Most of Nahr al-Bared's estimated 40,000 residents have fled to other nearby refugee camps. About 150 more left on Monday.

Some 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, around half in 12 camps.

In eastern Lebanon, security forces arrested four people on suspicion of belonging to an Islamist militant group, security sources said. The arrests were part of a crackdown in the Bekaa Valley following the arrest of three Arab al Qaeda members last week in possession of weapons and explosives.

Today's arrests brought to more than 13 the number of people detained in the case.

Reuters>