Posted on 06/09/2007 11:44:15 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
TRIPOLI, Lebanon - Lebanon's army stepped up its assault on Islamic militants hiding inside a Palestinian refugee settlement on Saturday, launching artillery barrages and sending in armored carriers and special forces.
Witnesses in the Nahr el-Bared camp reported some of the heaviest army shelling since June 1, when the Lebanese army — using tanks and artillery — launched an offensive to drive out the Fatah Islam militants.
Security officials said five soldiers were killed Saturday and 15 wounded, some seriously. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to give official statements.
Local and Arab television stations billed it as a major army assault on militants inside the camp, but a senior Fatah Islam commander denied the reports and said fighters were holding their ground against the army.
"We are on the front lines across from them," Abu Hureira, Fatah Islam's deputy commander, told The Associated Press by telephone from inside the camp.
Abu Hureira, whose real name is Shehab al-Qaddour, dismissed as "rumors" media reports that he and Fatah Islam leader Shaker Youssef al-Absi, were wounded. He said some fighters were "lightly" injured "but it's nothing compared to them," he said, referring to Lebanese army casualties.
He said the militants were still fighting with the same tenacity, claiming that Fatah Islam fighters attacked an army position on the northern edge of the camp Friday and seizing weapons from Lebanese army soldiers.
Tensions in Lebanon have been high since fighting broke out May 20 between the army and Fatah Islam militants in Nahr el-Bared. Fears of spreading chaos have also been sparked by clashes at another Palestinian refugee camp, Ein el-Hilweh in the south, and several bombings in the Beirut area.
In a statement issued Friday, the army said it was "gradually taking control of the terrorists' positions" in Nahr el-Bared.
More than 120 people, including at least 60 Fatah Islam militants, 49 soldiers and 20 civilians, have been reported killed in the fighting — the worst internal violence in Lebanon since the 1975-90 civil war.
Recent civilian casualties are not known because the camp has been closed to journalists and aid workers for days. Though most of Nahr el-Bared's residents have fled, thousands remain trapped inside.
Where are the amnesty international cries of ‘massacre’?
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Smoke from artillery and tank shelling rise from the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon June 9, 2007. Lebanese troops pounded al Qaeda-inspired militants dug in at a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon on Friday after the group rejected demands to surrender. Artillery and tanks blasted several areas of the squalid Nahr al-Bared camp, where Fatah al-Islam fighters have shown stiff resistance in three weeks of often ferocious battles. REUTERS/Jerry Lampen (LEBANON)
Has the UN condemned Israel for the violence yet?
This settlement is how large? And it doesn’t move around, right? Encircle it with concertina wire and carpet-bomb it with tons of pork carcasses. They’ll be on the wire in days. Shoot at will...
Wait! Are you sure that's a real Reuters fauxto?
I suspect real in this case. ;-)
I agree. Carpet bomb the damn place and you will kill all the terrorists, as well as those individuals who support the terrorists by allowing them to hide out in the camp.
Five Lebanese soldiers killed in refugee camp battles
Nazih Siddiq - Reuters
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070609/ts_nm/lebanon_fighting_dc
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (Reuters) - Five Lebanese soldiers were killed on Saturday in heavy fighting against al Qaeda-inspired militants entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp, a military source said.
At least 125 people, including 53 soldiers and 42 militants, have been killed since the fighting began on May 20 — almost three weeks ago — making it Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
The military source said another soldier had died from wounds sustained earlier. Security sources earlier added that several soldiers were wounded in Saturday’s fighting in which machinegun fire reverberated and heavy artillery shelling rocked the camp from early morning.
A Palestinian source inside the camp said at least four Fatah al-Islam militants died in the intensive assaults in which heavy black smoke billowed from many of the squalid Nahr al-Bared camp’s bombed-out buildings, some riddled by bullets and punctured by shells.
“The army is trying to control positions that the militants are using to target the army,” a military source said.
Only a few thousand of the 40,000 residents remain in the coastal camp which is short of food, water and electricity.
“I saw at least 17 civilian homes destroyed. An oil refinery warehouse and at least five cars were burning,” said Mahmoud Abu Jihad, a resident in the camp.
Another camp resident, Milad Badran, said: “The army’s bombardment is haphazard and is hitting civilian areas. It is impossible to describe the humanitarian situation.”
The latest mediation efforts by Lebanese Islamists to try to convince the militants to surrender have so far had no success.
But Lebanese sources said the Islamic Action Front, which includes Sunni politicians and clerics, and a grouping of Palestinian clerics, would continue efforts to find a solution.
“We are trying in every way to convince them, even using Islamic intellectual arguments and sharia (Islamic law) that this is not the right way,” the Front’s leader Fathi Yakan told Reuters.
FOREIGN FIGHTERS
Yakan said a proposed first step was the surrender of the group’s Lebanese members.
The militants, many of whom are foreign fighters from other Arab countries, have vowed to fight to the death and are refusing to surrender or give up their weapons.
“The army is attacking from afar and they don’t come close. We will keep fighting until this oppression is lifted, We will fight until the end, even for months, it’s not a problem,” Abu Hurayra, a Fatah al-Islam commander, told Reuters from the camp.
The fighting began on May 20 when the militants attacked army units deployed around Nahr al-Bared after one of their hideouts in a nearby city was stormed.
Lebanon is already struggling with a 7-month-old political crisis, and there are fears that fighting could spread.
Deadly clashes have erupted at Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp in the past week, and five bombs have rocked civilian areas in and near Beirut since May 20.
Fatah al-Islam was officially formed late last year. Its leader, veteran Palestinian guerrilla Shaker al-Abssi, says he shares the same ideology as al Qaeda but has no organizational links with Osama bin Laden’s network.
Authorities have charged 32 detained members of Fatah al-Islam with terrorism, charges that carry the death penalty.
(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Beirut)
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The leader of Fatah Islam Shaker al-Absi, second right, speaks during a press conference escorted by gunmen in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared in Tripoli, north of Lebanon in this in this March 13, 2007 file photo. When al-Absi showed up at a Palestinian refugee camp last year and offered commandoes to fight the Israelis, fellow fighters received him with enthusiasm. Today, al-Absi and his men are pariahs in the same camp, fighting a different war against a different enemy: Lebanon's army. (AP Photo, File)
These people have to eat and drink, right? I say shut off he power, water, and food. Tell the locals that they have 24 hours to clear out of the areas where the whack jobs are holed up. Then saturation bomb the area for 24 hours. If all turns out OK, turn the power, water, and food back on. Repeat as necessary.
“........Mahmoud Abu Jihad, a resident in the camp.”
his “name” (nom de guerre) belies the “resident” designation
“Where are the amnesty international cries of ‘massacre’?”
No Israeli or American soldiers involved here/s
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