Middle East:Lebanese troops yesterday seized control of a Palestinian refugee camp which had been the scene of a fierce battle with militants for more than three months, killing at least 31 fleeing fighters, security sources said.
Thirty-four more Islamist militants from the Fatah al-Islam group were captured, 23 of them inside the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon. Most were wounded, a security source said.
"The battle is over. The Lebanese army has seized the last positions of Fatah al-Islam in the camp," a senior security source told Reuters. "Most of the terrorists were killed today. The others have been captured. A few might have escaped, but the army is hunting them down."
The fate of Shaker al-Abssi, the group's Palestinian leader, was unclear. Fatah al-Islam says that it shares al Qaeda's ideology but has no organisational ties to the network.
The fighting has been Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, leaving more than 300 people dead.
Five soldiers were killed on Sunday, raising the army's death toll to 157. At least 131 militants and 42 civilians have also been killed.
The army had initially estimated that only 35 active fighters remained in the camp before Sunday, along with the wounded. An army statement said that the militants had tried to escape from the camp in the early hours of the morning. The fighters "attacked army positions in a desperate attempt to flee", the statement said.
At least three gunmen from outside the camp had also attacked an army position in an attempt to help the fighters to escape.
Security forces were patrolling the area yesterday evening, searching orchards and fields. Helicopters joined in the hunt and naval boats patrolled the Mediterranean coast.
Security sources believe that Fatah al-Islam set booby-traps around the camp.
Soldiers fired celebratory gunfire and locals threw rice at the troops to applaud their efforts. Soldiers sitting on top of army vehicles waved Lebanese flags.
Most of the camp's 40,000 residents fled to a nearby Palestinian refugee camp in the early days of the fighting, which erupted on May 20th after Fatah al-Islam attacked army positions near the camp and the city of Tripoli.
Fatah al-Islam split from a Syrian-backed Palestinian faction last year. The hardline Sunni Islamist group includes Lebanese, Saudi and Syrian fighters.
The militants had put up fierce resistance and managed to inflict casualties on the army despite aerial and artillery bombardment. Their wives and children were evacuated from the camp on August 24th.
The army said that it would not allow anyone to enter the camp and called on Palestinians not to return to it for the time being.
• The leader of Fatah al-Islam militants Shaker al-Abssi was believed killed in the fighting.
A Fatah al-Islam prisoner identified a body of a militant killed near Nahr al-Bared camp as that of Abssi's but the Lebanese army were running DNA tests to confirm that it was him, sources said.
- (Reuters)