At least nine civilians were killed and 20 wounded on Monday in a Lebanese army shelling of a Palestinian refugee camp during fighting with Islamist militants, Palestinian sources inside the camp said.

They said the toll was certain to rise as some areas of the camp, home to some 40,000 refugees, could not be reached by rescue workers.

The shelling occured a day after 57 people were killed in battles there and in the nearby northern city of Tripoli, security sources said.

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Tank shells crashed into the coastal camp, raising plumes of smoke, as fighters of the little-known Fatah al-Islam group fired grenades and machineguns at army posts on the camp perimeter, witnesses said.

At least 27 soldiers, 15 militants and 15 civilians died in Sunday's violence, the worst internal fighting since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement on Monday condemned the Palestinian militants battling Lebanese troops, saying the al-Qaida linked Fatah Islam has nothing to do with them.

They urged Palestinian refugees in the camp to isolate the militant group, which first set up in the northern Lebanese camp last fall after its leader was released from a Syrian jail.

Palestinian officials, who met with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora in Beirut Monday, said the leader was focused on saving innocent lives and left it up to him to decide whether to send the army into the camp.

Lebanese Red Cross ambulances evacuated 20 wounded from the camp overnight, following an appeal for humanitarian access from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Witnesses said imams called by loudspeakers for the army to stop shelling the camp, one of several across Lebanon which host about 400,000 Palestinian refugees, part of an exodus prompted by the 1948 war that followed Israel's creation.

In Beirut, an explosion near a popular shopping mall in the mainly Christian east of the capital killed a woman and wounded at least 10 people on Sunday night, a security source said.

No group has claimed the attack and it was not clear if it was linked to the fighting in the north. Four Fatah al-Islam members were charged with bombings near Beirut earlier this year.

Lebanese government ministers say Fatah al-Islam is a tool used by Syria to stir instability in an effort to derail UN moves to set up an international court that would try suspects in the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Syria denies links to Fatah al-Islam militants

Syria rejected on Monday accusations from Lebanese officials that it had links to Fatah al-Islam militants fighting troops in northern Lebanon, saying it had tried to arrest the group's leaders.

"Our forces have been after them, even through Interpol," Foreign Minister Walid Moualem said in a lecture at Damascus University. "We reject this organisation. It does not serve the Palestinian cause and it is not after liberating Palestine."

"The (Syrian) Interior ministry had already issued statements about the leaders of Fatah al-Islam after a bombing in Lebanon several weeks ago," Moualem said, referring to Syria's denials in March that it had any links to the group, which was accused of bombing two buses near Beirut.

Fatah al-Islam emerged in November when it split from Fatah al-Intifada (Fatah Uprising), a Syrian-backed Palestinian group.

Moualem also said the UN tribunal to try the suspects in
Hariri's killing had fallen under U.S. control and could further
destabilise Lebanon.

"The Syrian people must realise that this tribunal is one of the tools of the United States to undermine Syria and the region. This is why we said we will not deal with it," he said.

"Will the rush to establish the tribunal bring security and stability to Lebanon or threaten them?" Moualem said during a lecture at the University of Damascus.

Washington, Paris and London have said those involved in Hariri's killing must be punished and the tribunal was vital to deter more assassinations. France's UN ambassador said he hoped the resolution would be adopted by the end of the month.

U.S. says Lebanon justified in attacks on camp
Lebanese security forces are justified in their attacks on Islamist militants in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.

"It would appear that the Lebanese security forces are working in a legitimate manner to provide a secure, stable environment for the Lebanese people in the wake of provocations and attacks by violent extremists," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

McCormack said the militants, who come from the Fatah al-Islam group, were committed to violence and the use of terror. "The Lebanese security forces are rightfully acting to enforce law and order in Lebanon," he said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was an "effective, strong" leader, McCormack said.

"We have every confidence that he will act in the best interests of the Lebanese people dealing with these various challenges," he said.

Militant was wanted in German terror bid
One of the Islamic militants killed in fighting with Lebanese troops in northern Lebanon was a suspect in a failed German train bombing attempt, a Lebanese security official said Monday.

Lebanese authorities have arrested four other suspects on charges they allegedly planted crude bombs on two trains at the Cologne, Germany, station on July 31. The bombs, found later in the day on trains at the Koblenz and Dortmund stations, failed to explode because of faulty detonators. German surveillance cameras are said to have filmed suspects as they wheeled suitcases into the station.

The body of Saddam el-Hajdib was among the burned bodies of 10 Fatah Islam fighters found in a building in the northern city of Tripoli after it was raided by Lebanese troops and policemen during Sunday's fierce fighting with the militants, the official told The Associated Press. El-Hajdib was the fourth-highest ranking official in the Fatah Islam group, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

El-Hajdib had been on trial in absentia in Lebanon in connection with the
failed German plot. It was not clear if Lebanese officials had known his
whereabouts before the fighting broke out Sunday in northern Lebanon, in the city of Tripoli and in a nearby Palestinian refugee camp where Fatah Islam has set up its headquarters.

Suppressing Fatah al-Islam
Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni Muslim group inspired by Al Qaida, is thought to have only a few hundred fighters, but suppressing it is no easy task for Lebanon's over-stretched army of 40,000.

The army may not enter the country's 12 Palestinian refugee camps under a 1969 Arab accord. Palestinian factions still carry weapons inside the camps, despite a 2004 UN Security Council resolution calling for all militias in Lebanon to be disarmed.

The resolution is rejected by Lebanon's biggest armed group, Hezbollah, whose Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas fought a 34-day war with Israel last year. Some 15,000 army troops moved to south Lebanon under a UN resolution that halted hostilities, while another 8,000 were sent to control the border with Syria.

Media on both sides of Lebanon's political divide criticised the authorities for not tackling Fatah al-Islam before. "Who is responsible for the army's massacre in the Fatah al-Islam ambush?" asked as-Safir, a pro-opposition daily, referring to a militant attack on an army patrol on Sunday.

Using the army to tackle armed groups in Lebanon has long been a sensitive issue, given the country's sectarian divisions, but Nahr al-Bared's Lebanese neighbours have had enough. "We're not sleeping at night. Our children are terrified. We're not leaving our homes. We don't want anything but God's mercy," said Ahmed Frousheh, 55, a farmer who lives nearby.

"The camp has to respect the state. They are destroying Lebanon, inciting strife all because of the tribunal and Syria."

Fatah al-Islam's leader, Shaker al-Abssi, was sentenced to death in Jordan in absentia for the 2002 killing of a U.S. diplomat. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the slain chief of al Qaeda in Iraq, received a death sentence for the same crime.

Abssi, a Palestinian guerrilla in his 50s, was jailed in Syria and fled to Lebanon after he was released last year. Palestinian guerrillas established bases in Lebanon in the late 1960s and took part in the civil war that erupted in 1975.

Palestine Liberation Organisation guerrillas were forced to leave Lebanon after Israel's 1982 invasion. Refugee camps in Beirut later came under fierce attack from Syrian-backed Shi'ite Amal militias. Pro-Syrian Palestinian factions took over the camps, but the larger Fatah group remained influential.