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Fresh gunfight rocks besieged Lebanese refugee camp

A new firefight erupted yesterday at a battered refugee camp in Lebanon where the army is besieging an Islamist militia, amid efforts to end the bloodiest internal clashes for decades.

The rattle of gunfire reverberated around the Nahr al-Bared camp before troops surrounding the shantytown fired four shells toward the northern entrance where the Islamists are holed up.

Smoke was seen billowing from the area, the epicenter of the fighting between the army and fighters from the Sunni Muslim extremist group Fatah al-Islam, but calm later returned.

Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers, backed by tanks, armored personnel carriers and machinegun-mounted jeeps, surround the north Lebanon camp where several thousand civilians remain trapped without running water, with little food and no electricity.

As the siege entered its eighth day, political tensions were rising because of divisions over how to handle the crisis and a UN vote this week on the creation of a court to try suspects in the murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Hariri was killed in a massive Beirut bomb blast in 2005 widely blamed on former powerbroker Syria, which was later forced to end nearly 30 years of military and political domination of Lebanon.

Lebanon's Western-backed ruling majority has accused Syria of stirring the troubles in the north and blamed it for a string of recent bomb attacks in a bid to block the tribunal.

The army has kept Nahr al-Bared under siege since Fatah al-Islam attacked army targets on May 20, sparking fierce gunbattles in the camp and the nearby port city of Tripoli which have left 78 people dead.

According to UN estimates, between 3,000 and 8,000 of the 31,000 Palestinian refugees registered at Nahr al-Bared are still inside the camp, while Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said on Sunday that 5,000 remained.

A government source said the authorities have given Palestinian groups in Lebanon "the chance to resolve the problems with Fatah al-Islam without time restraints."

Under a longstanding arrangement, the 12 impoverished refugee camps in Lebanon remain outside the control of the government and in the hands of armed Palestinian factions -- despite a UN resolution calling for the disarmament of all militias.
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