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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon charges 14 militants with terrorism

2007-10-03

In a related development Lebanon Tuesday charged 14 people with murder and terrorism, including the spokesman of the Islamist militant group Fatah Al Islam, state prosecutor Saeed Mirza said. He said the defendants, seven of them in detention, were charged in connection with the killing of Lebanese soldiers during a 15-week standoff with the Al Qaeda-inspired militants that ended September 2. They were accused of "belonging to the Fatah Al Islam terrorist group, with the aim of committing crimes against people and property," the national news agency NNA said. The defendants comprised six Palestinians, three Syrians, two Lebanese, two Saudis, and one German of Turkish origin, it said. More-than-400 people died in the battles at the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al Bared in northern Lebanon, including 168 soldiers, that broke out May 20. A total of 311 members of Fatah Al Islam, including 147 in detention, have been charged since August in connection with the bloodshed.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Donors offer $20 mln for Palestinian camp refugees

2007-09-11

Oh lord. BEIRUT - International donors pledged about $20 million on Monday to help Palestinian refugees made homeless by a 15-week battle between the Lebanese army and Islamist militants holed up inside their refugee camp. The Nahr Al Bared camp was home to about 40,000 before fighting erupted on May 20 but is now largely destroyed. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called a donors’ conference to seek funds to reconstruct the camp in north Lebanon. I'll provide the salt, and Deacon Blues will provide a horse that will pull the plow. The amount pledged fell well short of estimates of what was needed to cover the costs of adequate relief for the refugees, the reconstruction of the camp and help for nearby municipalities. The government estimated the total required at $382.5 million. How about this: they're not 'refugees' any more! Their grandparents might (maybe) have been, their parents definitely not, and there's no way these people are refugees. They don't get a camp. They don't get a tent. They get a bus ticket to somewhere else. They can scratch out a living in some other gawdforsaken place without the UNRWA. And preferably without guns. But if you have to rebuild the camp, put it in Mauritania. The Lebanese have suffered enough. The United States led pledges with $10 million. What? My tax dollars are going into this? Germany offered 4 million euros ($5.52 million), Norway 10 million crowns ($1.81 million) and Italy about 2 million euros. Most other countries refrained from setting specific amounts. Saudi Arabia had pledged $12 million during the fighting and the United Arab Emirates pledged $5 million. But that's ammo money for the widows. UNRWA, the UN agency which cares for Palestinian refugees, said it needed $55 million ‘to fund the first year of rehabilitation and emergency assistance to refugees from the Nahr Al Bared refugee camp’. I'm tellin' ya, salt is cheaper. Hoda Elturk, UNRWA spokeswoman, said: ‘We are very happy with the response of the donors and we are expecting more pledges to come.’ "These pledges will keep the bureauocracy fully funded!" she added. The government’s estimate includes UNRWA’s $55 million request, $249 million for rebuilding the camp and $78.5 million for the nearby municipalities and compensation for those affected in the surrounding areas. Most of the refugees fled to the nearby Beddawi camp in the early days of the fighting and are not expected to return to Nahr Al Bared soon. Most of its buildings are in ruins and the camp is littered with landmines.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon hunts down fugitives after final assault on camp

2007-09-04

NAHR Al BARED, Lebanon - Lebanese soldiers hunted down fugitive militants on Monday after crushing an Islamist group in fighting that ended a deadly 15-week standoff at a battered Palestinian refugee camp. As troops swept the devastated shantytown in northern Lebanon for explosives and hunted for any surviving members of Fatah Al Islam, the bodies of two of the Sunni extremist group’s leaders were identified, an army spokesman said. ‘We have identified the bodies of Fatah Al Islam chief Shaker Al Abssi and his spokesman Abu Salim Taha,’ the spokesman told AFP. ‘We also believe that we have the body of Nasser Ismail, another of the top commanders.’ He said soldiers had also captured four militants in the camp on Monday, including one hiding in an attic. An army officer here added that four Islamists hiding in the sewers were killed after they fired at an army patrol in the camp, wounding two soldiers. Gunshots could still be heard inside the camp, and an army official there said troops were trying to kill all smoke out remaining militants. Bulldozers cleared sandbags from around Nahr Al Bared, which remained off-limits to civilians on Monday, while troops in armoured carriers cordoned off an area south of the camp and traffic on the main coastal highway to neighbouring Syria was diverted. Another military source said soldiers found weapons and rockets in underground shelters where the militants, who were said to take their inspiration from Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, had been holed up.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Rotten corpses hamper army operations at Lebanon camp

2007-08-13

Lebanese soldiers are being hampered in their fight against holed-up Fatah al Islam terrorists at the Nahr el Bared Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon by the stench of putrefying corpses. An officer on the ground said yesterday that the rotting corpses littering the devastated Nahr Al Bared refugee camp had made the air there unbreathable. A hospital source said several soldiers had been admitted due to severe vomiting. However, the army continued sporadic shelling of Islamist positions though sustained casualties during mine-clearing operations on the ground. Two helicopters flew over the camp but did not open fire as they had on previous days, while the army blew up several buildings on the periphery of the small area of the camp still controlled by the Islamists. "The army is continuing to make slow progress in de-mining the area while limiting its losses. A certain number of soldiers have been killed or wounded by mines left by the armed men," a military spokesman said. "Several buildings have been destroyed by various means to clear mines and booby-trapped vehicles," he added. National News Agency has reported that the alleged terrorist leader Chahine Chahine, has renewed his offer to surrender in return for a pledge that he would not receive the capital punishment. The conflict has had severe repercussions across Lebanon, not least nation-wide power cuts as the Deir Ammar power station remains out of action after being struck by rockets launched by the Islamists on August 2. Fatah al-Islam's leader Offers to surrender National News Agency has reported that the alleged terrorist leader Chahine Chahine, has renewed his offer to surrender in return for a pledge that he would not receive the capital punishment. Sources familiar with the Lebanese judiciary system commented that "no authority in Lebanon can make such a pledge. No one can guarantee ahead of a trial what the verdict would be. This is illegal. This would be tantamount to interference in the judiciary." The Lebanese army is insisting on unconditional surrender .

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

11 Lebanese soldiers wounded in clash with militants

2007-07-25

Eleven Lebanese soldiers were wounded Monday in clashes with Islamist militants holed up for more than two months in a refugee camp in northern Lebanon, hospital sources said. An army spokesman confirmed that a number of soldiers had been wounded but refused to specify how many. He said that the clashes between the army and Fatah Al Islam militants at the Nahr Al Bared Palestinian camp intensified after a morning lull in the fighting. "The army is responding to the source of fire from inside the camp and continues to remove booby-traps left behind by Fatah Al Islam in destroyed buildings," he said. Army cannons fired a shell every three minutes at the positions of the die-hard militants who responded with machine-gun fire, a witness said. Almost all of the camp's 31,000 residents have been evacuated, as have Palestinian militants not involved in the showdown. However, around 20 women and 45 children related to the Islamists have stayed inside the besieged settlement despite the military having blared messages to them through loudspeakers to leave the largely destroyed camp.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon’s army advances into camp, military toll 100

2007-07-16

NAHR AL BARED, Lebanon: Lebanese troops advanced for the first time yesterday into a Palestinian refugee camp as they battled Al Qaeda-inspired militants, and two soldiers were killed raising the military death toll to 100. Quagmire! Lebanese and army flags were seen flying over two or three devastated buildings inside Nahr Al Bared as the battle for the north Lebanon camp between the military and Fatah al-Islam fighters entered its ninth week. The advance marked a major step for the army in the battle to crush the militants and a rare venture by troops into a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon in four decades. A 1969 Arab agreement banned Lebanese security forces from entering Palestinian camps. The agreement was annulled by the Lebanese parliament in the mid-1980s but the accord effectively stayed in place. So much for national sovereignty. Security sources said at least two soldiers died in the latest fighting, bringing the military death toll to 100. A total of 221 people, including at least 80 militants, have been killed since the fighting began on May 20, making it Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war. The toll includes those killed in limited clashes in other areas of the country. Fatah al-Islam is made up of a few hundred mainly Arab fighters who admit admiration of Al Qaeda but claim no organisational links. Some of the fighters have fought in or were on their way to fight in Iraq. Soldiers exchanged automatic rifle fire and grenades with militants at buildings and alleyways leading to the centre of Nahr Al Bared while army artillery and tanks pounded other areas. Fatah al-Islam fighters hit back, firing a dozen Katyusha rockets at surrounding Lebanese villages. The sources said troops pulled out alive two commandos who had been buried under the rubble of a booby-trapped building that blew up on Saturday. The military has increased its bombardment of the besieged camp since Thursday, anxious not to get sucked into a war of attrition with the well-trained and well-armed militants. But the militants have responded fiercely, killing 13 soldiers and wounding 53. In south Lebanon, unknown gunmen shot dead Dharrar Rifai at Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp. Rifai was a member of the now defunct Jund al-Sham group. Jund al-Sham was dissolved last month after clashes with the Lebanese army. Two groups dominate Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp: Fatah and Al Qaeda-linked Usbat al-Ansar. The violence has further undermined stability in Lebanon, where a Syrian-sponsored paralysing eight-month political crisis has been compounded by Syrian-sponsored bombings in and around Beirut, the Syrian-sponsored assassination of an anti-Syrian legislator and a Syrian-sponsored fatal attack on UN peacekeepers.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

NGOs accuse Leb army of ‘excessive force’

2007-07-02

Relief workers yesterday accused the Lebanese army of using "excessive force" to disperse a protest in which dozens of displaced refugees in northern Lebanon were killed or wounded. "The protesters were more than 10 metres (yards) away from the (army) checkpoint and there was gunfire," said Caoimhe Butterfly, an Irish member of the Nahr Al Bared Relief Campaign, a non-governmental organisation. Mahmud Halimi, the NGO's coordinator, called for an independent probe into Friday's violence as Palestinian refugees demanded the right to return to the Nahr Al Bared camp where troops have been battling Islamists since May 20. "The demonstration was going peacefully and unarmed. The soldiers fired first in the air. We sat down to de-escalate, but after that there was gunfire at the demonstrators. There was no communication before opening fire," he said. "Men, women and children were victims of an excessive use of force. We ask for an independent investigation," Butterfly told reporters in Beddawi, a Palestinian camp near Nahr Al Bared and close to the scene of the violence. Medics said three people were killed and about 40 wounded as the demonstration by hundreds of refugees who fled Nahr Al Bared came under fire from Lebanese soldiers at a checkpoint outside Beddawi. A wounded Palestinian, Salim Shamaa, said, "I got shot because I was raising my hand to talk to the people," while 22-year-old Mohammed said he was knifed by Lebanon counter-demonstrators. "People are very angry. They thought they had left Nahr Al Bared to be safe ... The last thing they thought was they could be killed or wounded by coming here," said Mona Waked of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. But the Lebanese army insisted its troops had taken all necessary measures to avoid casualties among the protesters. "They were trying to force their way through the checkpoint, carrying metal objects and sticks, ignoring warning shots in the air," an army spokesman said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Islamist sniper, bomb kill four Lebanese troops

2007-06-24

NAHR Al BARED, Lebanon - Islamist militants shot dead a Lebanese soldier and one of their booby traps killed three other soldiers at a Palestinian refugee camp on Saturday, drawing fierce artillery shelling from the army. Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah Al Islam snipers gunned down the soldier and wounded three others at Nahr Al Bared camp in north Lebanon, scene of five weeks of battles. Shortly afterwards a booby-trap blast killed three more soldiers and wounded one, security sources said. The soldiers had been on a demining mission. The deaths were the first military fatalities since the army declared an end to major combat on Thursday and brought to 80 the number of troops killed in the fighting. Heavy 155 mm artillery shells slammed into the heart of the camp where the militants had deployed after retreating from outlying positions captured by the troops. Militants responded with small arms fire and grenades, security sources said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanese army heavily shell Nahr Al Bared camp

2007-06-17

BEIRUT - The Lebanese army heavily shelled with artillery on Saturday positions manned by Islamist terrorists militants in the northern sector of the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al Bared. The heavy shelling caused clouds of smoke and flames from several fires could be seen rising over the Fatah Al Islam posts. The heavy shelling followed an army statement on Friday in which it vowed to continue to ‘expand its seige zone, control the camp and paralyse the movements of what remains of the band of terrorists.’ The army also announced it had destroyed a big ammunition depot of Fatah Al Islam, and reiterated its demand for the Islamist terrorists militants to surrender. Around 2,000 Palestinian refugees are believed to remain in the camp which was home to 40,000 before fighting erupted on May 20. Four soldiers from the army’s engineering squad were killed and others wounded when a booby-trapped building which they were searching collapsed on them. A fifth died of his wounds on Saturday, bringing the toll to 143 so far, including 67 soldiers, and over 50 terrorists militants. The violence has forced thousands of people to flee the camp to the nearby refugee camp of Beddawi. Fatah Al Islam terrorists members have vowed to stay fighting rather than surrender.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Four killed in clashes at second camp in Lebanon

2007-06-05

Two Lebanese soldiers and two Islamist extremists were killed in overnight clashes near a refugee camp in the southern port city of Sidon, a military spokesman said on Monday. A ceasefire was declared, however, when Palestinian factions held emergency talks with the army command in Sidon to ease tensions. Jund Al Sham, a militant group consisting mainly of Islamist Lebanese extremists, then ceded their positions to gunmen from other Islamist groups, reported Reuters. “The army asked the Palestinian factions to seek a halt to attacks on the army, saying that if they don’t stop, it would act firmly,” said a Palestinian source. There was no demand to hand over militants, he added. Eleven other people were also wounded in the fighting near the northern entrance of Ein Al Helweh, the largest of Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps, said a military spokesman, according to AFP. The fighting had erupted as Lebanese troops continued to battle Islamist militants in another camp, Nahr Al Bared, in a 16-day standoff that has left about 100 people dead. Schools were closed in Sidon on Monday, many shops remained shut and traffic was slow in the city as the army imposed tight security measures, an AFP correspondent said. A mortar shell crashed near the municipality building in Sidon and bombardments could be heard throughout the night. The army sent in more armoured vehicles around the camp after fighting with gunmen from Jund Al Sham. The overnight clashes also wounded six Lebanese soldiers, two civilians and three fighters from Jund Al Sham, according to Lebanese and Palestinian hospital sources. Palestinian factions, who have sole control over security in Ein Al Helweh, were engaging in contacts with Lebanese authorities in order to put an end to the confrontations, local officials told AFP. Jund Al Sham is a small Sunni extremist group based in neighborhoods just outside the northern entrance of Ein Al Helweh, where Islamist groups have gained grounds in the last few years. Jund Al Sham seems to have no clear hierarchy or particular leader and is believed to have about 50 militants armed with assault-rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Its name literally means “Soldiers of Damascus”, but refers to the ancient Islamic terming of Bilad Al Sham that includes present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestinian territories. Its members are mostly Lebanese but it also includes Palestinians, mostly dissidents of the Sunni fundamentalist group Usbat Al Ansar, which was outlawed by the Lebanese authorities in 1995 for murdering a rival cleric that year.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

UNRWA seeks urgent relief funds for Nahr Al Bared refugee camp

2007-06-05

UN Works and Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) launched Monday a Flash Appeal for USD 12.7 million to address urgent needs of thousands of Palestinian refugees displaced by the fighting in and around Nahr Al Bared camp in North Lebanon. According to a UNRWA statement, more than 27,000 Palestinian refugees have so far fled their homes in Nahr Al Bared, most taking refuge in the nearby Beddawi camp. The money, said the statement, will be spent on delivering assistance to the displaced over the coming 90 days. It includes plans for food assistance, non food items and shelter, both immediately in order to relieve the congestion of Beddawi camp and in the short term to ensure suitable temporary shelters and provide minimum and dignified living standards to those in distress. UNRWA figures indicate that the population of Beddawi camp has swollen from 16,000 persons to around 37,000, jeopardizing the lives of inhabitants and stretching the already over-crowded living conditions. The Commissioner General of UNRWA, Karen AbuZayd, said that the situation in the camps was already extremely difficult and now it has deteriorated even further. "This fighting has placed refugees on the front line and I am very concerned about the precarious situation in which they find themselves. Life in Beddawi Camp has become unbearable and I appeal to donors to help us take immediate action," she stressed.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon: PaleoLeaders seek end to standoff

2007-05-29

Palestinian leaders yesterday tried to end a bloody standoff between the Lebanese army and militants holed up in a refugee camp - the battleground for Lebanon's worst fighting since the civil war. Worried that violence could spill over to other Palestinian camps, the government is giving the Palestinian factions time to try to deal with the Fatah Al Islam group, which has been battling the army around the Nahr Al Bared camp since May 20. Sporadic gunfire continued into the early hours yesterday. The army said in a statement it had opened fire when fired upon and destroyed Fatah Al Islam fortifications, "causing definite casualties in the ranks of the militants". But the already stretched army has been unable to deal the militants a decisive blow from its positions around the camp, which it is banned from entering under a 1969 Arab agreement. The Lebanese government is concerned that more heavy army action could trigger violence at other Palestinian camps in Lebanon, which are autonomous enclaves and home to some 400,000. "What is slowing down the army is the realisation that we could have a nationwide problem," said Timur Goksel, an expert on security affairs in Leb-anon. "This would mainly be a reaction if the Palestinian civilian suffering was heavy." Abu Emad Al Refaie, the Lebanon representative of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, said: "The military solution is no longer an option." The Lebanese government has demanded the handing over of Fatah Al Islam militants, many of whom are not Palestinian. "We have not discussed the matter of handing them over," Refaie said. The factions had agreed other points including the formation of a Palestinian committee to shore up security in the camp, he said. Osama Hamdan, the Lebanon representative of Hamas, declined to comment on the progress of the talks. A Fatah Al Islam spokesman said the group would not hand over any of its fighters. "This is impossible," Abu Salim Taha said by telephone from inside the camp.

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