Two local Red Cross workers were killed yesterday when their vehicle came under fire from inside a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, hospital officials said.
The workers were killed in their vehicle as they tried to escort a Palestinian cleric, who has been trying to mediate an end to fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam militants, out of the Nahr el-Bared camp, the officials said.
The cleric, Sheik Mohammed Haj Ali, was injured in the leg, said officials from Islamic Hospital in the northern city of Tripoli where the victims were taken. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak publicly to the media.
A cloud of smoke hung overhead as scores of heavy artillery rounds crashed into the camp, while tank and heavy machinegun fire strafed suspected militant hideouts.
The militants hit back with sporadic attacks of mortar bombs and rocket-propelled grenades. Lebanon's army is not allowed into Palestinian camps under the terms of a 1969 Arab agreement.
At least 132 people have been killed, including 57 soldiers, in three weeks of fighting, the worst internal clashes since Lebanon's 1975- to 1990 civil war. Eleven soldiers died and more than 100 were wounded in battles at the weekend alone.
Rescue workers have been unable to give an accurate death toll because of the difficulty of moving in the camp -- a sprawling warren of alleyways on the Mediterranean -- but at least 42 militants and 33 civilians have been killed.
The army says the militants triggered the conflict by attacking its positions around the camp and on the outskirts of the nearby city of Tripoli. Fatah al-Islam says it acted in self defense and has vowed to fight to the death.
The fighting has further undermined stability in Lebanon, already paralyzed by a seven-month-old political crisis.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not