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Lebanese soldiers blow up militia chief's shack

Lebanese commandos have blown up the house of the Islamist militia chief fighting in a refugee camp in a deadly showdown that has ignited UN fears about widening civil strife.

A crack navy unit on Monday destroyed the house of Shaker al-Abssi, leader of the Fatah al-Islam militia which has been battling troops from its stronghold in the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon since May 20.

"They destroyed the house after seizing important documents," a military spokesman said yesterday without elaborating.

A Palestinian source inside Nahr al-Bared confirmed the house on the Mediterranean shores of the impoverished shantytown was destroyed by a navy commando force which clashed with militants before blowing up the building.

For the past three weeks, the army has been struggling to crush Fatah al-Islam despite its superior firepower and has lost three dozen men in the deadliest internal feuding since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

The Palestinian-born Abssi and his Sunni extremist group first surfaced in November when Lebanese authorities arrested two militants. Abssi made his base in Nahr al-Bared after being freed from a Syrian jail last year but is wanted by both Damascus and Amman.

On Monday, three soldiers and two Red Cross workers were killed and a mediator attempting to find a peaceful solution to the crisis was wounded in separate incidents around the besieged camp.

The deaths raised to 128 the number killed, including 61 soldiers and 50 Fatah al-Islam gunmen, since the fighting erupted in Nahr al-Bared and the nearby port city of Tripoli.

Since late Monday, sporadic fire continued to rattle around the camp where about 3,000 civilians are still marooned by the fighting in increasingly desperate conditions.

As violence raged on the ground, the UN Security Council voiced deep concern at reports of arms smuggling across the Lebanese Syrian-border.

UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said militias such as Fatah al-Islam or the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and Fatah-Intifada appeared to be growing stronger with higher quality arms.
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