BEIRUT, 20 June 2007 — Palestinian mediators are hopeful a deal will be reached soon to end a month of fighting between Lebanese troops and Al-Qaeda-inspired militants entrenched in a refugee camp, political sources said yesterday. The Nahr Al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp has seen Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war. At least 162 people have been killed, including 73 soldiers, more than 57 militants and 32 civilians.
Previous mediation efforts to end the fighting, which has forced most of the camp’s 40,000 refugees to flee, have failed. But a Palestinian political source said Palestinian mediators had met Shahin Shahin, a key Fatah Al-Islam member, on Monday to discuss details of a truce. The plan entails a cease-fire after which the militants would retreat to within the camp’s official boundaries.
Mainstream Palestinian factions would deploy a 150-strong force in Nahr Al-Bared and Fatah Al-Islam would announce its disbandment. Islamic Jihad, a mainstream Palestinian faction, said results would emerge in hours. “There is clear responsiveness from Fatah Al-Islam,” Islamic Jihad representative Abu Emad Al-Refaie told Al-Manar television. “I think what has been reached now opens important and positive horizons to end this crisis,” he said.
At Nahr Al-Bared, a Lebanese soldier was killed yesterday, security sources said. They said another Lebanese soldier died yesterday from wounds sustained earlier. Witnesses said army shelling resumed early in the morning and later intensified on the camp’s eastern side. Television footage showed smoke billowing from punctured buildings.
Tanks and artillery yesterday shelled positions in the northern seashore sector of the Palestinian camp where the militants are believed to be dug in. Both sides also exchanged volleys of assault-rifle and machine-gun fire. Clouds of white dust plumed above battered buildings from which flickering orange muzzle flashes of gunshots could be seen targeting soldiers around the camp.
Militants fired assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades at the army, which retaliated with a barrage of tank fire. “The battles today are focused on continuing to gain control over the Naji Al-Ali and Taawniyeh positions,” said a military source, referring two main Fatah Al-Islam positions on the camp’s edges, which he said the army was near to controlling.
Security sources said soldiers discovered the bodies of seven militants in a building they were checking for booby traps. The army says the militants triggered the conflict by attacking its positions near the camp and around the nearby city of Tripoli. Fatah Al-Islam says it has acted in self-defense.
The army has slowly advanced on the area controlled by the militants, without entering the camp’s official boundaries. Security forces are barred from going into Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps by a 1969 Arab agreement. The group emerged late last year after splitting from the pro-Syrian Palestinian faction Fatah Al-Intifada (Uprising).
Lebanon’s Western-backed government says Fatah Al-Islam is linked to Syrian intelligence, a charge denied by Damascus.
