Last update - 00:00 13/07/2007
Lebanese army resumes attacking Palestinian militants in refugee camp
By The Associated Press
Under constant artillery fire from the Lebanese army, Islamic militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon shot back with rockets on Friday.
Regular artillery and tank fire could be seen falling on Nahr el-Bared, sending plumes of black smoke rising in the air over the refugee camp's bullet-punctured buildings.
Apparently trying to ease the military pressure and expand the battles outside the camp, the Al-Qaida-styled militants unleashed a volley of Katyusha rockets at the army.
A total of nine rockets crashed into villages neighboring the refugee camp, as well as in orange and grape groves, security officials and the state-run National News Agency said.
The rockets caused some damage but no casualties, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
However, the army said two soldiers died Friday, one from wounds he suffered Thursday and the other from fighting unrelated to the rocket attack.
Friday's fatalities brought to 94 the number of soldiers killed since fighting erupted on May 20.
In a statement, the army said it had seized control of a number of buildings that had been used by Fatah Islam militants to attack and snipe at soldiers. It said the army was cleaning the buildings of mines and booby traps while continuing to tighten the noose on remaining militants inside.
A Lebanese military expert said the rockets fired by the militants were unlikely to have much impact.
It has more a psychological effect than a military effect, said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general. They (Fatah Islam) want to widen the area of conflict, he said. But it will never change anything or the outcome of the battle.
Fatah Islam gunmen also traded heavy fire with the troops circling them in the refugee camp, soldiers said.
They shot back with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns, said a soldier sitting in a military jeep a few hundreds meters from the camp. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The army had reported four soldiers died in the previous day's fighting, but a senior military official raised the death toll to six on Friday.
The six soldiers, including an officer, were killed by shrapnel or gunfire during the fierce fighting Thursday when the army unleashed one of its heaviest bombardments against the Fatah Islam militants, said a military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make statements.
A Lebanese man, identified as Adel al-Ajel, also died Thursday in a hospital after being hit in the head by a stray bullet on a highway near Nahr el-Bared, the NNA reported.
An armored personnel carrier was seen Thursday ferrying at least two injured soldiers out of the camp, but the total number of wounded was not known, the military official said.
An amateur tape obtained by The Associated Press Television on Friday showed masked Fatah Islam gunmen hiding in a building damaged by artillery fire in Nahr el-Bared.
Enemies of God, shouted a gunman, apparently referring to Lebanese soldiers before the din of gunfire echoed in the distance.
The tape then showed the body of a dead man wrapped with a blanket, while two wounded men were brought to a clinic inside the camp. It was not clear whether the dead and wounded men belonged to Fatah Islam.
Medics, flanked by a veiled woman and other relatives of the wounded, were seen struggling to save the two wounded. A rescuer was seen breathing air into the mouth of one of the two wounded, whose fate was not known.
The tape showed damaged or bullet-punctured cars in the camp's deserted streets littered with debris. Two veiled women and two unarmed men were seen scurrying for cover.
The army buildup came after a sniper inside Nahr el-Bared killed a soldier late Tuesday night, and following repeated refusals by the Fatah Islam group to surrender.
The army denied in a statement Thursday it was conducting its final assault against the militants barricaded inside the camp.
The ongoing military operations are still in the context of tightening the noose on the gunmen to force them to surrender, the statement said.
Lebanese officials claimed victory June 21 after troops seized Fatah Islam positions on the camp's edges, but the militants then retreated deeper into the warren of densely packed buildings and have continued to engage in daily fire fights.
At least 60 militants and more than 20 civilians have been reported killed in the fighting, the country's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war. The camp housed more than 30,000 Palestinian refugees before the battles began.
Most of the camp's residents have already fled, but a few thousand are thought to have stayed in their homes.