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Lebanese unleash bombardment on fighters' stronghold

Lebanese troops unleashed an intense artillery bombardment yesterday against positions of Islamist fighters who have been holed up inside a refugee camp for almost a month.

A correspondent near the camp said heavy artillery shelling began early after a largely quiet night interrupted only by the crackle of light-arms fire.

Clouds of smoke and flames from several fires could be seen rising over the northern sector of the Nahr al-Bared camp, the stronghold of the Fatah al-Islam extremists.

The sustained attack followed an army statement on Friday in which it vowed to continue to "expand the zone under its control in the camp and to paralyze the movements of what remains of the band of terrorists."

Approximately 2,000 Palestinian refugees are believed to remain in the camp, which was home to 31,000 before fighting erupted on May 20, the deadliest internal violence in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war.

On Friday, four soldiers were killed and others wounded when a booby-trapped building which they were searching collapsed.

A fifth died of his wounds yesterday, bringing the toll in the clashes to 135 killed, including 68 troops and 50 Islamist fighters.

The army also announced it had destroyed a big Fatah al-Islam ammunition depot and repeated its demand for the Islamist radicals to surrender.

Many of the extremists, who share the same ideology of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, are believed to have fought against US-led forces in Iraq and are considered battle-hardened veterans.

Washington has rushed military aid to Lebanon to help the army's offensive and has warned US citizens in the country to keep a low profile because of the threat of retaliatory attacks.

The fighting comes against a backdrop of mounting political instability in deeply divided Lebanon, where another prominent lawmaker was assassinated in a Beirut car bombing on Wednesday.

Saudi King Abdullah ordered payment of US$10 million to help refugees displaced by the fighting, the official Saudi news agency SPA said.
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