SIDON, Lebanon, 5 June 2007 — Deadly firefights in a Palestinian camp in south Lebanon and a bus bombing in the capital opened new fronts for the army yesterday as it battles to crush an Al-Qaeda-inspired militia in a 16-day standoff in the north of the country.

Residents were plunged into panic by the gunbattles between the army and extremists which first flared late Sunday near Ein El-Hilweh, the largest of Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps in the southern city of Sidon.

Two soldiers and two militants were killed and 11 wounded, a military spokesman said, and dozens of families fled to safety before calm was restored later yesterday.

But in the evening a bomb ripped through a public bus in Christian east Beirut wounding at least seven people, a security source said.

The explosion in the mixed residential and industrial district of Sed Al-Baushrieh was the fourth to rock Lebanon since the clashes between the army and the militants broke out on May 20 and Information Minister Ghazi Aridi was swift to link the two. “The bombings and the clashes are connected,” he said after an emergency Cabinet meeting.

Footage broadcast by Lebanese television showed the bus had been burned out by the force of the explosion. Several parked cars and the facade of a nearby shopping center were also badly damaged. The security source said that one suspect had been arrested as police cordoned off the area.

The new violence came as Lebanese troops again pounded Fatah Al-Islam gunmen in the Nahr Al-Bared camp near the northern port city of Tripoli in a standoff that has left more than 100 people dead.

In a bid to contain the latest unrest, the army deployed more armored vehicles around Ein El-Hilweh and boosted security in Sidon where schools were closed, many shops remained shut and traffic was slow. “We cannot feel safe when there are lawless areas with armed Islamists,” complained businessman Mohamad Zein as hundreds of Palestinian refugees set up temporary homes in the city’s parks.

The fighting pitted troops against gunmen from Jund Al-Sham (Soldiers of Damascus), a little known group mainly made up of Lebanese extremists, some of them wanted. Palestinian factions, which have sole control over security in Ein El-Hilweh as in all other camps across the country, were in contact with Lebanese authorities to try to end the confrontation, local officials told AFP.

The latest flare-up has fueled concerns the violence could spread to more of the 12 camps which hold more than half of the 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, mostly in conditions of abject poverty, and have become breeding grounds for extremism.

In all, 108 people have been killed in 16 days of bloodshed, the deadliest internal feuding since the 1975-1990 civil war that has added to tensions in a country already in the grip of an acute political crisis.

Jund Al-Sham, which has no clear hierarchy or particular leader, is believed to have about 50 militants armed with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

In north Lebanon, army troops including about 1,000 crack commandos were tightening the noose around the militants holed up in Nahr Al-Bared, where both sides are vowing to fight to the end.