By Nazih Siddiq TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) – Lebanese troops killed seven Islamist militants, most of them foreigners, in a raid on their hideout in the northern city of Tripoli on Sunday, while sporadic battles shook a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, Security sources said one soldier was killed and 14 were wounded during the 10-hour siege of an apartment building. The militants killed a policeman, his two daughters, aged 4 and 8, and his father-in-law after using them as human shields.A police statement said the policeman and his daughters were visiting the father-in-law who lived in the building when the militants stormed their flat and seized them at the start of the clashes. The militants later killed them, it said.

The army said it had found weapons, ammunition and electronic booby trap equipment in the apartment.The dead militants, who included a Lebanese woman, were not members of Fatah al-Islam, which has been fighting an army assault on its stronghold in the Nahr al-Bared camp north of Tripoli for the past five weeks, the security sources said.But it was information from a captured Fatah al-Islam member that led the army to the apartment where the shootout erupted.Two floors of the five-storey building were blackened and burned in the fighting. Holes from shells, grenades and bullets punctured its facade. A pool of blood lay on the pavement.