Security forces fought Islamic militants with alleged links to al-Qaeda in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli and an adjacent Palestinian refugee camp early yesterday, and at least five members of the security forces were killed in fighting that involved tank and grenade fire, security officials said.
TV stations said at least three of the militants were also killed.
The army command would only say that there were five dead and 10 wounded among its troops and that military units were fighting back, firing from tanks to retake position lost to the militants.
The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. They said they could not give more specifics on casualties because the battle was ongoing.
It was the worst fighting in Lebanon's second-largest city in over two decades, security officials and witnesses said.
The clash between army troops surrounding the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared and fighters from the Fatah Islam militant group began after a gunbattle raged in a neighborhood in Tripoli, witnesses said.
The militant group is an offshoot of the pro-Syrian Fatah Uprising. Fatah Uprising broke from the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement in the early 1980s and has headquarters in Syria. Some Lebanese security officials consider that Fatah Islam is now a radical Sunni Muslim group with links to al-Qaeda.
Witnesses said gunmen seized Lebanese army positions at the entrance to the refugee camp. The militants also opened fire on roads leading to the city and ambushed a military unit, the security officials said.
The army brought reinforcements and was firing on Fatah Islam positions.
The city was shuttered and roads were deserted as the crackle of gunfire could still be heard in the morning, more that five hours after the clashes began.
Troops in the Zahriyeh neighborhood could be seen besieging a building where militants had taken refuge and were demanding they surrender. They occasionally exchanged fire with the gunmen.
Scores of troops armed with automatic rifles and rocket launchers had taken positions on city streets. Dozens of onlookers gathered behind army lines to watch the siege, and the army was bringing reinforcements from other regions with 10 armored vehicles headed to Tripoli from the south.
At the southern coastal entrance to Tripoli, a military vehicle was ditched on the side of the highway, abandoned. It was not clear whether it had been hit by gunfire.
The clashes in the camp began early in the morning shortly after police raided a militant-occupied apartment on Mitein Street, a major thoroughfare in Tripoli. The police were looking for suspects in a bank robbery a day earlier in Amyoun, a town southeast of Tripoli, in which gunmen made off with US$125,000 in cash.
The armed militants resisted arrest and a gunbattle ensued. It spread to surrounding streets.
Ahmed Fatfat, minister of sports and youths, and who is from northern Lebanon, said Sunday that security forces raided militant hideouts in Tripoli neighborhoods, including one on the southern edge of the city on the coastal highway linking Tripoli with Beirut, the Lebanese capital.
The violence in Tripoli prompted Saad Hariri, leader of the parliamentary majority and head of the largest Sunni political faction to urge supporters to cooperate with authorities in the crackdown against the militants.
Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city, is known to have Islamic fundamentalists.
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