TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) 20 May — Lebanese tanks pounded the headquarters of a group with suspected links to al Qaeda in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli Sunday after the northern city’s worst clashes in two decades killed 22 soldiers and 17 militants.The clashes between troops surrounding the Nahr el-Bared camp and Fatah Islam fighters began early in the morning shortly after police raided a militant-occupied apartment on a major thoroughfare in Tripoli and a gunbattle erupted, witnesses said. A senior security official said a high-ranking member of Fatah Islam, known as Abu Yazan, was among those killed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Hundreds of Lebanese applauded as army tanks shelled the camp — a sign of the long-standing tensions between some Lebanese and the tens of thousands of Palestinians who took refuge from fighting in Israel over the past decades.
"We strongly back the Lebanese army troops and what they are doing," said Abed Attar, a resident of Tripoli who stood watching the tanks fire into the camp while others cheered.
The violence adds one more destabilizing factor to conflict-ridden Lebanon, in the midst of its worst political crisis between the Western-backed government and pro-Syrian opposition since the end of the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war. It underlines the difficulties facing authorities in dealing with pockets of insecurity across the country that are havens for militants. The clash between army troops surrounding the Palestinian refugee camp and fighters from the Fatah Islam militant group began after a gunbattle raged in a neighborhood of nearby Tripoli, witnesses said.
The militant group is an offshoot of the pro-Syrian Fatah Uprising, which broke from the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement in the early 1980s and has headquarters in Syria. As many other small factions in Lebanon, Fatah Islam’s allegiance is sometimes questionable in this deeply polarized country.
Some Lebanese security officials consider that Fatah Islam is now a radical Sunni Muslim group with ties to al Qaeda, or at least al Qaeda-style militancy and doctrine. But some anti-Syrian government officials say they are a front for Syrian military intelligence aimed at destabilizing Lebanon. Syria has been fighting its own Sunni militancy, and has frequently battled with radicals striking in Damascus neighborhoods. Major Palestinian factions have dissociated themselves from Fatah Islam
Bank robbery precedes clashes
The clashes in the camp began shortly after police raided a militant-occupied apartment on a major thoroughfare in Tripoli. Authorities said police were looking for suspects in a bank robbery a day earlier in Amyoun, a town southeast of Tripoli, in which gunmen made off with $125,000 in cash.
The armed militants resisted arrest and a gunbattle ensued. It spread to surrounding streets and continued through the afternoon.
Witnesses said the militants then seized Lebanese army positions at the entrance to the refugee camp, capturing two armored carriers. The gunmen also opened fire on roads leading to the city and ambushed a military unit, killing two soldiers, security officials said.
Smoke billowed from the camp as a steady barrage of artillery and heavy machine gun fire from army positions pounded militant positions inside the refugee camp.
By midmorning, the army had brought reinforcements and was firing on Fatah Islam positions.
The dozen Palestinian refugee camps scattered in Lebanon are off limits to authorities, and some are controlled by armed guerrillas. Lebanese troops usually cordon the camps with checkpoints. Their presence around Nahr el-Bared increased in recent months after the tiny Fatah Islam militant group stepped up its actions.
The Lebanese army command said earlier Sunday that military units were fighting back, firing from tanks to retake position lost to the militants.
But a Fatah Islam spokesman said the group only fought to defend itself.
"We acted in self-defense after brothers of ours in Tripoli were subjected to arrests," Abu Salim, identified as a spokesman for the group, said by phone from inside Nahr el-Bared. He claimed the Sunnis were under attack and "we rose to defend our people."
Troops in Tripoli’s Zahriyeh neighborhood could be seen besieging a building where militants had taken refuge. The troops at the scene occasionally exchanged fire with the gunmen and said nine were holed up in the building. They said they were waiting for special commandos to arrive to storm the building.
Scores of soldiers armed with automatic rifles and rocket launchers had taken positions on city streets. Dozens of onlookers gathered behind army lines to watch the siege, and the army was bringing reinforcements from other regions.
Links to al Qaeda
The tiny Fatah Islam is an offshoot of the pro-Syrian Fatah Uprising, which broke from the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement in the early 1980s and has headquarters in Syria.
The group is allegedly led by Shaker Youssef al-Absi, a Palestinian living in Syria who was sentenced to death in absentia in July 2004 by a Jordanian military court. Al-Absi was found guilty of conspiring to terrorism in a plot that led to the assassination in Jordan of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley. Former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was accused of masterminding the killing.
Some Lebanese security officials now consider Fatah Islam a radical Sunni Muslim group with ties to al Qaeda, or at least al Qaeda-style militancy and doctrine. But some anti-Syrian government officials say they are a front for Syrian military intelligence aimed at destabilizing Lebanon.
Syria, which has been fighting its own Sunni militancy, said it had temporarily closed two border crossings with northern Lebanon because of safety concerns over the clashes.
A senior security official said a high-ranking member of Fatah Islam, known as Abu Yazan, was among those killed. Security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
A Fatah Islam spokesman, Abu Salim said he had no information on the report.
"Many houses have been destroyed," Abu Salim told The Associated Press by phone from inside the camp.
The fighting injured 19 soldiers and 14 police officers, security officials said.
Hariri urges Sunnis to cooperate
The violence in Tripoli prompted Saad Hariri, leader of the parliamentary majority and head of the largest Sunni political faction, to urge supporters to cooperate with authorities in the crackdown against the militants.
The sudden explosion of violence was linked by the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority to efforts to create an international tribunal to try killers of former Premier Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a 2005 suicide truck bombing in Beirut. Syria opposes the tribunal.
The U.N. Security Council is considering a draft resolution to impose the court after Lebanon’s government and the pro-Syrian opposition failed to agree on approving it in Beirut.
The anti-Syrian majority coalition says Syria was using its allies in Lebanon to undermine approval of the court.
A U.N. investigation has linked senior Syrian security officials and allies in the Lebanese security services to the murder while Syria controlled Lebanon. Damascus, which was forced to withdraw its army two months after Hariri’s assassination, has denied the accusations.
Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city, is known to have Islamic fundamentalists.
In April, a Lebanese soldier was killed in a shootout with Fatah Islam gunmen at the edge of Nahr el-Bared, a camp of about 30,000 Palestinian refugees.
Lebanon’s anti-Syrian government also blamed Fatah Islam for a bus bombing in February in the Christian heartland northeast of Beirut that killed three people. The group has denied involvement in the bus bombing.
