Nahr el-Bared, Lebanon – Lebanese army tanks and artillery pounded this Palestinian refugee camp Monday, sending plumes of orange flame and black smoke into the sky as militants believed linked to al-Qaeda battled back fiercely from inside.
The second day of fighting on the outskirts of Lebanon’s northern port city of Tripoli caught tens of thousands of terrified civilians in the middle of the country’s worst internal violence since a 15-year civil war.
Palestinian officials told news agencies that Monday’s fighting killed at least nine residents of the camp and wounded 40. At least 27 Lebanese soldiers and 20 militants were killed in Sunday’s first day of fighting. Lebanese TV reported another eight soldiers killed by midafternoon Monday. It was not immediately possible to confirm the casualty figures.
Ambulances and hearses carried away the bodies of fallen soldiers.
The militants, said by Lebanese officials to include fighters from several countries and having self-declared links to al-Qaeda, battled Lebanese tanks at times from as close as a few dozen feet, separated only by a road that was also the escape route for fleeing families from surrounding towns.
Fighters belonging to a group called Fatah Islam fired on Lebanese troops from the dilapidated concrete homes of the camp.
There was virtually no word from the more than 30,000 Palestinians inside the Nahr el-Bared camp, caught in fighting that began Sunday at the camp and in the nearby city of Tripoli. While a short-lived cease-fire Monday allowed the removal of some wounded and dead Lebanese soldiers, Lebanese forces said they were not allowing out any of the camp’s civilians, apparently fearing fighters might escape.
Mouri, the daughter of a Lebanese father and a mother who was a Palestinian refugee, said she had heard nothing from friends and family members trapped inside the camp since Sunday, when a cousin called to say she and her 6-year-old daughter were pinned down at the camp hospital. Doctors and nurses had fled the hospital, leaving patients behind, the cousin told the family.
Residents of Tripoli said the fighting erupted about 2 a.m. in a relatively upscale neighborhood of the city when police tried to arrest a group suspected of robbing a bank a day earlier in a nearby coastal town.
The clash turned into a battle between the Lebanese army and Fatah Islam, whose leader has said he draws inspiration from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has been training militants for attacks in other countries, The Associated Press reported.
Lebanese officials have also accused Syria of using Fatah Islam to stir up trouble in Lebanon, a charge Damascus has denied.
