Fighting resumes in Lebanon
Heavy clashes between the Lebanese army and al Qaida-linked Islamic militants broke a week-long truce as Lebanon’s government stressed its determination to defeat the terrorists.
But the government said it was willing to give mediation a chance to end the fighting at a Palestinian refugee camp.
Lebanese army artillery yesterday pounded positions on the northern edge of the camp and near the Mediterranean coastline, apparently seeking to prevent any attempt by some militants to flee.
One rocket apparently fired from Fatah Islam militants in the camp started a fire on the edge of the camp.
Orange flames and white smoke shot up from at least two locations in the camp, according to television footage.
Sporadic gunfire exchanges have continued daily since the truce halted three days of heavy fighting. But the renewed fighting that began before sunset and lasted more than an hour was the worst outbreak in violence in a week. During the clashes, the Lebanese army used artillery to silence the militants’ source of fire.
US-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora vowed to defeat the militants.
“We cannot afford to bargain. We cannot compromise on the issue of terrorism,” he said in a statement before the renewed fighting broke out.
Three days of fighting beginning on May 20 had given way to a tense stand-off between the army and Fatah Islam militants who are holed up in the northern Lebanese Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared.
The army has rolled hundreds of soldiers, backed by tanks and armoured carriers, in place to storm the camp, where hundreds of fighters remain along with several thousand Palestinian civilians.
But the likelihood of brutal house-to-house fighting in the crowded camp has apparently prompted the government to take a step back to give Palestinian factions and Muslim clerics an opportunity to try to talk the militants into surrendering. Fatah Islam leaders have said they will never surrender and would rather die fighting.
Saniora signalled that the government’s patience was wearing thin, but it still hoped for a peaceful solution.
