QALAMOUN, Lebanon, 29 June 2007 — Lebanese soldiers killed five militants, most of them foreigners, in a clash on the outskirts of the northern town of Qalamoun yesterday, military and security sources said.
The military source said the gunmen appeared to be linked to Al-Qaeda-inspired militants of Fatah Al-Islam, which the army has been battling at a nearby Palestinian refugee camp since May 20. At least 199 people have been killed in Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
The firefight yesterday involved assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades as troops, backed by helicopters strafing the militants’ hide-out with machine-gun fire, raided the woods on the outskirts of Qalamoun.
The army later blocked off the area near the town, which is on the Mediterranean coast 5 km south of the city of Tripoli, and the fighting ended a few hours later.
The military source said the dead militants were thought to be behind an attack on an army patrol on May 20 in northern Lebanon, one of the initial flare-ups of the fighting that ensued mainly at the Nahr Al-Bared camp.
He said the militants were hiding in a cave, which they had rigged with booby-traps. “Blankets and mattresses were discovered in the cave. It looks like they had been living there for a while,” he said.
In a statement, the army said it “was able to wipe out all the elements of the group” and that the militants were found in possession of weapons and ammunition. Security sources said at least two of the militants were Lebanese and three were believed to be Saudi. Two Lebanese soldiers were slightly wounded, they added. Last week, Lebanese troops stormed a militant hide-out in Tripoli killing seven, mostly foreigners.
In Nahr Al-Bared, sporadic clashes flared between the army and Fatah Al-Islam yesterday. Artillery shells pounded the camp intermittently, witnesses said.
