Sporadic shooting rattled around a refugee camp in Lebanon yesterday after a night of gunbattles as the army battled to wipe out an al-Qaeda-inspired militia holed up inside.
Fighting was continuing on the 18th day of a deadly standoff between troops and the Sunni extremist group Fatah al-Islam, amid reports the resolve of the besieged militants was weakening and some were surrendering.
"The terrorists fired off a volley of shots from light weapons towards army positions on Wednesday [yesterday]," an army spokesman said.
"The shooting followed a night of army bombardments against positions of Fatah al-Islam, which opened fire with heavy weapons against our soldiers encircling the camp," he said.
The clashes erupted on May 20 around Nahr al-Bared and the nearby Mediterranean port city of Tripoli, rapidly deteriorating into the deadliest internal fighting Lebanon has seen since the 1975 to 1990 civil war.
Security has also been shaken by a series of bomb blasts in and around Beirut and police yesterday said a bomb was defused on a road leading to popular beaches in the southern port city of Tyre, a stronghold of Shiite militant groups in Lebanon.
Three Sunni militiamen hiding inside the Nahr al-Bared camp gave themselves up on Tuesday, with more seeking guarantees of safety if they do, the mainstream Palestinian faction Fatah said.
"Fatah al-Islam is in terminal phase, as its members are deserting its ranks," Fatah's leader in Lebanon Sultan Abu al-Aynayn said.
He said three gunmen had surrendered and handed over their weapons and that 18 others said they had stopped fighting and were seeking guarantees to turn themselves in, leaving only about 75 militiamen still fighting.
There was no confirmation from the Islamist group, which has vowed to fight "until the last drop of blood."
"We have information that there were some elements which gave themselves up, but the army has not received any of them," an army spokesman said. "We have information that some elements have also dropped their arms and left the fight, as many of them are in poor spirits.
"Now the army is continuing to tighten the noose on the gunmen, respond to the source of fire, track down armed elements and clear areas where there are explosives," he said.
During a lull in fighting on Tuesday, a convoy of ambulances and trucks loaded with medicine entered the squalid camp to supply the refugees still remaining amid fears of a humanitarian crisis.
In all, 108 people have been killed in 18 days of the unrest that has served to exacerbate a tensions in a deeply divided country already in the grip of an acute political crisis.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has warned Fatah al-Islam to surrender or be wiped out.
Meanwhile, Fatah al-Islam military commander Shahin Shahin threatened to take the fight to other parts of Lebanon and beyond if the Lebanese army did not stop attacking a Palestinian refugee camp.
"If the army continues to bomb civilians and pursue its inhumane practices ... we will move within the next two days to the second phase of the battle," Shahin said during a telephone interview yesterday.
"We will show them the capabilities of Fatah al-Islam, starting with Lebanon and then moving to the whole of Greater Syria," he said, using a term intended to include what is now Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS