Lebanese army raids militant hideout

TRIPOLI – Lebanese troops killed seven Islamist militants, most of them foreigners, in a raid on their hideout in the northern city of Tripoli yesterday, while sporadic battles shook a nearby Palestinian refugee camp.

Security sources said one soldier was killed and 14 were wounded during the 10-hour siege of an apartment building. The militants killed a policeman, his 4-year-old daughter and a relative who all lived in the building.The army said it had found weapons, ammunition and electronic booby trap equipment in the apartment.The dead militants, who included a Lebanese woman, were not members of Fatah al-Islam, which has been fighting an army assault on its stronghold in the Nahr al-Bared camp north of Tripoli for the past five weeks, the security sources said.But it was information from a captured Fatah al-Islam member that led the army to the apartment where the shootout erupted.Two floors of the five-storey building were blackened and burned in the fighting.Holes from shells, grenades and bullets punctured its facade.A pool of blood lay on the pavement.The violence in the north has complicated a political crisis that pits Lebanon’s Western-backed government against opponents led by the pro-Syrian Shi’ite Hezbollah and Amal factions.Fatah al-Islam, a new group on Lebanon’s tangled political scene, split from a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction last year with some 200 fighters.Since then it has drawn scores of Arab jihadis, including Iraq war veterans, to its Nahr al-Bared base.Before yesterday’s Tripoli raid, security sources had said the group was pursuing a bizarre plan to set up an Islamic emirate in north Lebanon and invite mujahideen from round the world to join it in fighting “Jews, crusaders (Westerners) and infidels”.Fatah al-Islam leaders deny direct links to al Qaeda, but say they sympathise with it.The militants killed in the Tripoli hideout were suspected of belonging to a group with closer ties to Osama bin Laden’s network, the security sources said.Nampa-ReutersThe militants killed a policeman, his 4-year-old daughter and a relative who all lived in the building.The army said it had found weapons, ammunition and electronic booby trap equipment in the apartment.The dead militants, who included a Lebanese woman, were not members of Fatah al-Islam, which has been fighting an army assault on its stronghold in the Nahr al-Bared camp north of Tripoli for the past five weeks, the security sources said.But it was information from a captured Fatah al-Islam member that led the army to the apartment where the shootout erupted.Two floors of the five-storey building were blackened and burned in the fighting.Holes from shells, grenades and bullets punctured its facade.A pool of blood lay on the pavement.The violence in the north has complicated a political crisis that pits Lebanon’s Western-backed government against opponents led by the pro-Syrian Shi’ite Hezbollah and Amal factions.Fatah al-Islam, a new group on Lebanon’s tangled political scene, split from a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction last year with some 200 fighters.Since then it has drawn scores of Arab jihadis, including Iraq war veterans, to its Nahr al-Bared base.Before yesterday’s Tripoli raid, security sources had said the group was pursuing a bizarre plan to set up an Islamic emirate in north Lebanon and invite mujahideen from round the world to join it in fighting “Jews, crusaders (Westerners) and infidels”.Fatah al-Islam leaders deny direct links to al Qaeda, but say they sympathise with it.The militants killed in the Tripoli hideout were suspected of belonging to a group with closer ties to Osama bin Laden’s network, the security sources said.Nampa-Reuters