05 July 2007
BEIRUT: The corpses of three Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam militants were pulled out of the Northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared on Wednesday as sporadic fighting continued in the camp between the militants and the Lebanese Army, according to media reports.
Witnesses outside the Nahr al-Bared camp also said that several major buildings collapsed on Wednesday - with the loud thumps of the collapses reverberating interchangeably with the sounds of shells crashing into Fatah al-Islam hideouts.
Security sources quoted by AFP said that three Fatah al-Islam members were killed and that their dead bodies were evacuated by civil defense workers after the attack on the army late Tuesday evening.
"There was an infiltration attempt," an army spokesman told AFP. "The army fired back and the militants pulled back to positions deep inside the camp, as usual. They have no fixed posts."
The Fatah al-Islam fighters "tried to advance toward buildings near the fringes of the camp to fire at soldiers," he added. "The army opened up with artillery, forcing their retreat and silencing their snipers."
The Central News Agency said Wednesday that the army also destroyed the last ammunition depots belonging to Fatah al-Islam, resulting in a huge explosion within the camp.
The clashes in Nahr al-Bared have claimed the lives of at least 200 people, among them 85 soldiers and 70 militants and the rest civilians.
Fatah al-Islam, which had spokesmen reachable on mobile phones during the early stages of the battle, has been unreachable for the past three weeks. There have been reports the militants shut off their phones so as not to be traced and targeted by the army.
Additionally, a meeting headed by Premier Fouad Siniora earlier Tuesday included the looking over of "confessions" by captured members of Fatah al-Islam, with some admitting connections to Syria, according to sources who attended the meeting and were quoted by the daily An Nahar newspaper.
Salafi Sheikh Omar Bakri, who had been in contact with Fatah al-Islam prior to the clashes, told The Daily Star in an earlier interview that the head of the group, Shaker al-Abssi, informed Bakri that he had "discovered Syria was trying to sell [Fatah al-Islam] out to America under the pretext of them being Al-Qaeda in Lebanon."
Meanwhile, Sudanese officials in Lebanon - in a statement released by the Suda-nese Embassy - denied "[the] involvement of any Suda-nese" in the Nahr al-Bared fighting. - With AFP
