Deadly firefights raged in a Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon early yesterday, opening a new front for the army as it battles an al-Qaeda-inspired militia in the north of the country.
Residents were plunged into panic by the gunbattles which first flared late on Sunday between the army and Sunni Muslim extremists near Ein al-Helweh, 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, while dozens of families fled to safety before calm was restored later yesterday.
The fighting erupted as Lebanese troops continued to lay siege to Fatah al-Islam gunmen in the Nahr al-Bared camp near the northern port of Tripoli in a 16-day standoff that has left more than 100 people dead.
In a bid to contain the latest unrest, the army sent in more armored vehicles around Ein al-Helweh and boosted security in Sidon, where schools were closed, many shops remained shut and traffic was slow.
The fighting pitted troops against gunmen from the Jund al-Sham (Soldiers of Damascus), a little known group mainly made up of Islamist Lebanese extremists.
Palestinian factions, which have sole control over security in Ein al-Helweh as in all other camps across the country, were in contact with the Lebanese authorities to try to end the confrontation, local officials said.
The latest flareup has fuelled 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.
In all, 107 people have been killed in 16 days of bloodshed, the deadliest internal feuding since the 1975 to 1990 civil war that has added to tensions in a country already in the grip of an acute political crisis.
"Jund al-Sham opens a new front against the army to support Fatah al-Islam," was the headine in the opposition As-Safir newspaper.
Jund al-Sham, which has no clear hierarchy or leader, is believed to have about 50 militants armed with assault-rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
It is based just outside the northern entrance of Ein al-Helweh, where Islamist groups have gained ground in recent years.
In the north, Lebanese 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.
On Sunday, the military intermittently pounded the camp where Fatah al-Islam is still holding out in the face of superior firepower.
The situation appeared relatively calm on yesterday.
"We are inflicting great damage on the part of the Lebanese army," Fatah al-Islam spokesman Abu Salim Taha told al-Jazeera TV on Sunday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora on Saturday had warned Fatah al-Islam to surrender or be wiped out.
The standoff has continued despite efforts by a group of Palestinian clerics to negotiated a solution.
"This is a terrorist gang," Siniora told al-Arabiya television on Saturday. "They must surrender themselves and their arms."
He said the army was carrying out "surgical operations" to eradicate the gunmen, but that if the Islamists give up "they will face a fair trial."
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