NAHR Al-BARED, Lebanon, 13 August 2007 — The Lebanese Army yesterday rejected a conditional offer of surrender by Islamist extremists in a besieged Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country, a mediator said.
“The Islamists’ spokesman Shahin Shahin made known an offer to give themselves up to a Palestinian committee, but this was rejected by the military,” said Mohammed Hajj, a spokesman for religious leaders trying to broker an end to the deadly fighting at Nahr Al-Bared.
“The army is demanding their unconditional surrender; that they hand over their weapons and the Fatah Al-Islam disband,”, Hajj added.
A military spokesman confirmed this. “Fatah Al-Islam is in no position to set conditions,” he said. “They have no other option but to give themselves up to the army and be brought to justice. However we are ready to guarantee that their families will be able to leave peacefully. Let them suggest a mechanism for this and it will go ahead,” the spokesman added.
No more than an estimated 60 of the camp’s 31,000 population remains inside Nahr Al-Bared. Soldiers continued bombarding the camp yesterday with intermittent artillery fire, targeting underground Fatah Al-Islam positions. The extremists still control an area of about 15,000 square meters.
Two rockets launched from inside Nahr Al-Bared yesterday morning hit the Akkar Plain four kilometers away, without causing casualties or damage.
On Aug. 2, rockets fire from the camp hit the Deir Ammar electricity-generating station, one of the most important in Lebanon. It is still out of action, and has meant power cuts across the country.
