Sylvie Groult, AFP, August 17, 2007, NAHR AL BARED, Lebanon — Three months into the deadly standoff between the Lebanese army and Islamist guerrillas holed up in a refugee camp, troops are still battling to crush an unexpectedly well-armed and well-organized enemy. Located along the Mediterranean coast near the northern city of Tripoli, the Nahr Al Bared camp, today, is but an apocalyptic scene of twisted steel and ruins. The red-and-white Lebanese flag flutters here and there as a sign of the army’s advance.
Black-and-white smoke hangs over the skeletal buildings that heave at the impact of each mortar round, or from the explosion of mines spread by the Fatah Al Islam fighters all over the sprawling camp. The army, in the last week, has resorted to air attacks in a bid to flush out the estimated 70 militants thought to be still hiding in subterranean shelters, along with some 100 women and children.
"We are using airstrikes, as shelling them with tank fire is no longer effective or sufficient," said an army spokesman. "We are trying to clear the small area around where the Islamists are holed up, so that our tanks and military equipment can get through." The drawn-out battle, which has claimed the lives of more than 200 people, including 136 soldiers, has taken even the war-hardened Lebanese by surprise.
Defense minister Elias Murr mistakenly announced an end to the fighting at the end of June, but has, since, kept a low profile, refusing to make a prognosis as to when the standoff may end. On the battle front, troops continue to slowly clear the camp’s sinuous streets of booby-traps and mines, as they try to seize the last, tiny area still controlled by the Islamists. The camp’s 31,000 Palestinian refugees fled at the start of the fighting May 20, leaving behind the Al Qaeda-inspired militants who infiltrated into Lebanon and took up positions inside Nahr Al Bared last year.
By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer 
Aug 3, NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (AFP) – Lebanese soldiers fought fierce battles on Friday with Islamists holed up inside a Palestinian refugee camp with eyewitnesses reporting fires raging in a small area still controlled by the militants. An AFP correspondent saw two Katyusha rockets being fired from within Nahr al-Bared camp north of Tripoli by the militants, with one projectile hitting a nearby power station.
BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon’s Byblos Festival will still go ahead this weekend despite continuing political tensions and security worries in the country, the organisers said on Friday. The Mediterranean country’s usually vibrant cultural scene has been massively curtailed since last year’s devastating war 
By Nour Samaha , 
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (AFP) – A Lebanese soldier was killed on Tuesday in clashes with Islamist fighters as the army closed in on the extremists’ positions in a bombed-out refugee camp, a military spokesman said. We have a martyr today. He was killed in the confrontations" with militiamen of the Islamist group Fatah al-Islam in Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon, the spokesman who did not wish to be identified told AFP."We are continuing the operation. The army is extending its deployment to new positions in the camp where we are further tightening the noose on the gunmen to force them to surrender," he said.
