BEIRUT, 22 June 2007 — Lebanon’s Defense Minister Elias Al-Murr said yesterday the army’s military operation against militants was over after the military destroyed all the militants’ positions. “I can tell the Lebanese that as of now the military operation in Nahr Al-Bared is finished,” Murr told Lebanon’s LBC television in a live interview.
Earlier in the day, the Lebanese Army’s insistence on the surrender of the leaders of a militant group holed up at a Palestinian camp is complicating efforts to mediate an end to fighting there, a Palestinian political source said yesterday.
Mediators had been upbeat about bringing an end to more than a month of fighting between the army and the Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah Al-Islam group at the Nahr Al-Bared camp in north Lebanon. “Things have been complicated. The initiative has not succeeded,” a Palestinian political source said.
“The Lebanese Army is insisting on the surrender of all leaders and key members of Fatah Al-Islam. It seems the Nahr Al-Bared front will remain open for some time,” the source said.
A Lebanese security source confirmed the army wants the surrender of Fatah Al-Islam leader Shaker Al-Abssi and his military commander known as Abu Hurayra. The camp siege is the worst internal conflict since the 1975-1990 civil war.
A group of Palestinian clerics has been leading efforts to end the fighting that has killed at least 164 people, including 75 soldiers, at least 59 militants and 30 civilians. Sheikh Mohammad Al-Haj, one of the mediators, said the army had yet to respond to a peace initiative presented by the clerics on Wednesday.
The army shelled the camp heavily yesterday and fought the militants around the southern end of the camp, witnesses said.
Meanwhile, the Arab League has proposed that Lebanon’s divided political camps resume a national dialogue interrupted by last year’s war with Israel, a member of the Arab delegation in Beirut said yesterday.
“Amr Moussa and the Arab delegation has proposed restarting the Lebanon dialogue conference” grouping the country’s 14 main political and religious leaders, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“If the delegation can create an opening in Lebanon, that would support international and regional efforts to solve the Lebanese crisis,” the source added. League Secretary-General Moussa, who is heading a delegation for a third day of meetings, told reporters “if the Lebanese are ready to talks abroad nothing is preventing them from doing the same at home.”
He said his team had decided to extend its mission by a day until today in a bid to break the political stalemate plaguing the country for the past seven months.
Lebanon has been paralyzed by a chasm between its pro- and anti-Syrian camps since the opposition, led by the powerful Iran- and Syria-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah, quit the cabinet last November.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki yesterday welcomed any effort to kick-start the Lebanese dialogue and said “the security and stability of Lebanon are very important for the Islamic republic,” his ministry said.
