Tense calm returns to Lebanon camp after 33-day war

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon, June 22 (Reuters) An uneasy calm settled over a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon today after the Lebanese army claimed victory in 33 days of fighting against al Qaeda-inspired militants.

The battle for Nahr al-Bared camp, in which 172 people were killed, was Lebanon's worst outbreak of internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war.

Smoke curled from buildings shattered by shelling and only a few explosions and the intermittent rattle of gunfire broke the silence.

Army helicopter gunships circled over the camp.

Security sources attributed most of the blasts to soldiers blowing up booby-traps and mines laid by the militants.

Defence Minister Elias al-Murr declared victory over the Fatah al-Islam group yesterday, saying troops had seized all its positions and would lay siege to the camp until surviving militants surrendered. De-mining work would also continue.

Fatah al-Islam, believed to have had a few hundred fighters at the outset, relayed to Palestinian mediators its agreement to stop shooting shortly after Murr's late-night announcement.

The army said in a statement it had taken control of all 13 positions of Fatah al-Islam, including its headquarters, command and control centre and training grounds. It was destroying tunnels and hunting militants who had fled inside the camp.

Murr said many of the group's leaders had been killed. Remaining fighters had pulled back from the edges of Nahr al-Bared into civilian areas deep inside the camp.

He said the army would keep up its siege until all the militants gave themselves up, including their leader, Shaker al-Abssi. ''They have to surrender ... It's not good enough to say Abssi was killed.

If he is dead, give us the body.'' Analysts said the Lebanese army's victory alone would not wipe out the al Qaeda-inspired jihadis who are exploiting the country's security gaps and sectarian splits.

Fatah al-Islam has Lebanese as well as Palestinians, Syrians and Saudis in its ranks. Its forces, some of them hardened by combat in Iraq, had contested every inch of the army's advance.

MILITARY ZONE Lebanese soldiers barred anyone, including journalists, from entering the camp. Murr said it would remain a military zone.

''We're hearing that the fighting has stopped but there are still some explosions,'' Hind Abdulal, a 35-year-old mother of 10, told Reuters at the nearby Beddawi camp where she and her family, like thousands of refugees, had taken shelter.

''We're ready to go and stay on the sand instead of staying here (but) we know there are mines and booby traps,'' she said.

Dozens of young Palestinians chanted slogans at a UN school at Beddawi demanding to be let back into Nahr al-Bared. ''We want a fast return, not a fast meal,'' one sign said.

The fighting had focused on militant strongholds on the camp's outskirts. Security forces are barred from entering Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps by a 1969 Arab agreement.

At least 172 people, including 76 soldiers, 60 militants and 36 civilians and non-combatants, were killed in the violence. Much of the camp, home to about 40,000 refugees, was destroyed.

Palestinian mediators met Saudi diplomats to discuss the fate of Saudi nationals who had joined Fatah al-Islam, and ways of funding reconstruction in the camp.

Palestinian sources said at least seven senior Fatah al-Islam members were killed, including a Saudi cleric named Abu al-Haris.

The group's military commander, Abu Hurayra, and its spiritual mentor, Abu Bakr, were both badly wounded. Its senior spokesman, Abu Salim Taha, was also wounded, the sources said.

The army says Fatah al-Islam started the conflict on May 20 by attacking its posts. The group, which includes fighters from across the Arab world, says it had acted in self-defence.

Murr said some of the fighters belonged to al Qaeda. Fatah al-Islam's Abssi has said the group has no organisational ties to Osama bin Laden's network but shares its militant ideology.

Most of the camp's residents fled during the early days of the fighting to shelter in the nearby Beddawi refugee camp.

REUTERS SKB BD1741