Tripoli, Lebanon – Seven al-Qaeda-inspired guerrillas surrendered Tuesday to a secular Palestinian faction at a besieged refugee camp in northern Lebanon, offering the first sign that moderate Palestinians might be moving against the militants.
But others in the extremist group Fatah Islam continued to fight, and Lebanese government troops battered their hideouts in the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp for a fifth straight day.
Calm held at Lebanon’s biggest Palestinian refugee camp, Ein el-Hilweh in the south, where Islamic extremists sympathetic to Fatah Islam clashed with Lebanese soldiers Sunday night and Monday morning. The camp’s 65,000 residents remained on edge.
Many people worry the fighting could spread to more of Lebanon’s 12 camps for Palestinians, which are riven with the factional rivalries that have brought violence to the Gaza Strip.
The surrender by seven militants at Nahr el-Bared was the first time a major Palestinian group – in this case the Fatah movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – responded to calls by Lebanese authorities to campaign against Fatah Islam since fighting broke out May 20.
