Troops kill five Islamist gunmen in north Lebanon

QALAMOUN, Lebanon, June 28 (Reuters) Lebanese soldiers killed five Islamist militants, most of them foreigners, in a clash on the outskirts of the northern town of Qalamoun today, military and security sources said.

Earlier security sources and an army statement said six militants were killed in the clash.

The military source said the gunmen appeared to be linked to al Qaeda-inspired militants of Fatah al-Islam, which the army has battled at a nearby Palestinian refugee camp since May 20.

At least 199 people have been killed in Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The firefight today involved assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades as troops, backed by helicopters strafing the militants' hideout with machinegun fire, raided the woods on the outskirts of Qalamoun.

The army later blocked off the area near the town, which is on the Mediterranean coast 5 km south of the city of Tripoli, and the fighting ended a few hours later.

The military source said the group of dead militants were thought to be behind an attack on an army patrol on May 20 in northern Lebanon, one of the initial flare-ups of the fighting that ensued, mainly at the Nahr al-Bared camp.

He said the group were hiding in a cave, which they had rigged with boobytraps.

''The army has retreated from the area after it completed its mission of detonating the cave. Blankets and mattresses were discovered in the cave. It looks like they had been living there for a while,'' he told Reuters.

In a statement the army said it ''was able to wipe out all the elements of the group'' and that the militants were found in possession of weapons and ammunition.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS Security sources said at least two of the militants were Lebanese and three were believed to be Saudi. Two Lebanese soldiers were slightly wounded, they added. The military source said the militants' nationalities were Syrian, Iraqi or Saudi.

Last week, Lebanese troops stormed a militant hideout in Tripoli killing seven, mostly foreigners.

In Nahr al-Bared, sporadic clashes flared between the army and Fatah al-Islam today. Artillery shells pounded the camp intermittently, witnesses said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday the fighting near Nahr al-Bared's southern entrance had hindered efforts to deliver aid to the remaining camp residents. Most of the camp's 40,000 refugees have fled to the nearby Beddawi camp.

Fatah al-Islam split from a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction last year with 200 fighters. It has since drawn scores of Arab jihadis, including Iraq war veterans, to its Nahr al-Bared base.

The group's leaders deny any direct links to al Qaeda, but say they sympathise with Osama bin Laden's network.

REUTERS CS RN2036