40 dead as Lebanese troops battle Islamists

TRIPOLI, (AFP) - Fighting between Lebanese troops and Islamic fighters left 40 dead in northern Lebanon, while an explosion in Beirut late Sunday killed at least one woman and wounded 10 others.

Fierce gun battles raged in Lebanon between soldiers and the Fatah al-Islam group, which has been accused of links to Al-Qaeda, in the bloodiest such clashes in seven years.

In the Beirut blast, the first bombing in the city since January, a 63-year-old woman was killed and 10 people wounded in the Christian quarter of Achrafie in Beirut, police and hospital sources told AFP.

"A woman of 63, Leila Moqbel, died," following the explosion, a police officer from Lebanon's interior security force (FSI) told AFP.
Ten other people were wounded and taken to two hospitals in the district, said hospital sources.

The FSI officer did not rule out the possibility that the explosion had been caused by a device left in a parking lot near a major shopping centre.

Several cars were destroyed in the blast, which blew out windows of nearby residential buildings and damaged the entrance to the shopping centre's parking garage.

Earlier Sunday, Lebanese troops staged a daylight assault on a building in Tripoli where Fatah al-Islam militants were holed up after deadly shootouts in the northern port city and a nearby Palestinian refugee camp.

The army said the fighting was triggered when the militants staged an attack on a military post outside Nahr al-Bared, home to about 22,000 refugees.

It said 23 soldiers were killed in the deadliest fighting between security forces and Islamists since 2000, while 15 gunmen were killed, 10 of them in Tripoli.

A Lebanese civilian died after being caught in the crossfire when troops stormed the building in a residential neighbourhood of Lebanon's second largest city.

A Palestinian refugee was also killed by the Lebanese army's bombardment of the Nahr al-Bared camp, a Fatah al-Islam stronghold.

Lebanon sent in heavy troop reinforcements to contain the battles involving anti-tank rockets and cannons which erupted at dawn in Tripoli and around Nahr al-Bared.

But the sound of gunfire continued to rattle through the streets shortly before sunset and even in the capital, patrols and roadblocks were visibly stepped up, with armoured cars circulating on the streets.

The army said two of its soldiers were killed in renewed fighting around the Nahr al-Bared camp in the early evening.

After an emergency meeting with security chiefs, the cabinet authorised the army to "take all necessary measures to restore order."

Four wounded Palestinians were evacuated from Nahr al-Bared, a Red Crescent spokesman said, adding that there were more casualties still inside the camp.

"The blows dealt by Fatah al-Islam against the Lebanese army are a premeditated crime and a dangerous attempt to destabilise (Lebanon)," charged Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

His Western-backed government has been paralysed for months by an acute political crisis.

According to various sources, more than 30 Lebanese soldiers, 16 police, seven civilians and about 40 refugees were also wounded in the violence.

Syria, the former power broker in Lebanon, announced it had closed two border posts into its smaller neighbour because of the violence.

Lebanese authorities have accused Fatah al-Islam, a splinter group said to be ideologically close to Osama bin Laden's network, of working for the Syrian intelligence services, which Damascus has denied.

Lebanese MP Mustafa Hashem renewed the accusation Sunday.
Damascus was seeking to stir trouble as the UN Security Council prepared to consider imposing an international court to try suspects in the 2005 murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri in which it has been implicated, said Hashem.

Fatah al-Islam has denied charges that it carried out bus bombings in a Christian area north of Beirut in February that left three people dead. It has also denied any links to Al-Qaeda.

The group accused the government of trying to pave the way for an offensive against the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, which house more than half of the country's nearly 400,000 refugees.

Fatah al-Islam is headed by Shaker Abssi, who is said to be linked to the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was killed in a US raid in 2006.