Four Lebanese soldiers were killed on Friday in fighting with Islamist
militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon, security sources said.

The soldiers were killed in fighting at dawn at the Nahr al-Bared camp, where the army's battle with the al Qaida-inspired Fatah al-Islam group is now in its fourth week.

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The fighting is Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, killing at least 148 people including 66 soldiers, more than 50 militants and 32 civilians. The violence has forced thousands of people to flee the camp.

Shell explosions and sporadic bursts of machinegun fire were heard on Friday at the camp -- base to the Fatah al-Islam group which is led by a Palestinian but includes fighters from other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

Most of the camp's 40,000 residents fled to the nearby Beddawi camp in the early days of the fighting, which erupted on May 20.

Fatah al-Islam emerged late last year after its leader, Shaker al-Abssi, and some 200 fighters split from the pro-Syrian Palestinian faction Fatah al-Intifada (Uprising).

Members of Lebanon's Western-backed government link Fatah al-Islam to Syrian intelligence, although both the group and Damascus deny any links.

Fatah al-Islam's stated goals are to spread its vision of Sunni Islam among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and to fight Israel and the United States. The group has little support among the Palestinian community.