Army Choppers Pound Fatah al-Islam
| Lebanese helicopter gun ships on Tuesday attacked positions held by Islamist militants entrenched in a refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
The gun ships staged repeated air raids on Fatah al-Islam positions in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared where the army has besieged the extremist militants since May 20, he said. The army had warned it would intensify attacks after Friday’s evacuation from the camp of the militants’ wives and children, a total of 63 people. Palestinian mediators are now continuing to try to negotiate the evacuation of nine wounded Fatah al-Islam members from Nahr al-Bared. One cleric told AFP the army has insisted that the wounded would only be evacuated when the remaining fighters, thought to number about 70, surrender. Sheikh Iyad Abu al-Ardat, another member of the League of Palestine Clerics, told AFP that evacuees with Syrian travel documents have already left for neighboring Syria over the weekend. He said evacuees with Jordanian travel documents headed to Jordan by land from Syria on Tuesday. The army has lost 148 soldiers since the confrontation erupted on May 20 when Fatah al-Islam attacked military targets in the north. Nahr al-Bared was home to 30,000 Palestinian refugees when the fighting erupted with the Islamists, who claim ideological ties to Al-Qaida.(AFP) |
| Beirut, 28 Aug 07 |
