DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - LEBANON: FATAH AL ISLAM IS BEING POUNDED BY LEBANESE ARTILLERY

Lebanese troops bombard Islamists
Army pounds positions of Fatah al-Islam fighters in Nahr al-Bared camp with artillery.
By Nicholas Tohme - NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon

Lebanese troops on Monday pounded Islamist positions in a Palestinian camp where about 400 refugees have been stranded with dwindling water and food supplies.

The army targeted positions of Fatah al-Islam fighters in the seafront Nahr al-Bared refugee camp of northern Lebanon where the two sides have been locked in battle since May 20.

"The soldiers are retaliating with artillery to the (Islamist) snipers who have been entrenched in buildings," a Lebanese army officer said. Sporadic fire was also heard overnight.

Sultan Abul Aynayn, the Lebanon chief of the mainstream Palestinian faction Fatah, said that about 400 Palestinian civilians remain in Nahr al-Bared, which had a population of 31,000 before the battles began.

"The civilians are living on old stocks, and lack water and food," he warned.

Abul Aynayn said the 400 remaining refugees were gathered in an area under the control of his Fatah faction which has been preventing the Fatah al-Islam splinter group from entering the protected zone.

He estimated that Fatah al-Islam had about 80 militants left in Nahr al-Bared, compared to a force of 250 men of different Arab nationalities before the clashes broke out.

"The others have either been killed, wounded, taken prisoner or just fled from the camp," he said.

Abul Aynayn said about 55 members of other Palestinian factions, including the Islamist movement Hamas, a Fatah rival, were deployed inside the camp.

Fighting broke out at the refugee camp on May 20 when Islamists launched a series of attacks against soldiers, killing 27 of them around the camp and in Tripoli, the main city in northern Lebanon.

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