Four Palestinians accused of planning bombings
Lebanese authorities have arrested four Palestinians outside a southern refugee camp who allegedly confessed to planning bombings inside the country, a senior security official said today.
The men also admitted belonging to Fatah Islam, an al Qaida inspired group holed up in a northern refugee camp that has been battling the Lebanese army since May 20, according to the official.
News of the arrests, which occurred Friday near the Ein al-Hilweh camp on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon, came a day after a Syrian Islamist warned that members of Fatah Islam were loose inside Lebanon and would soon launch attacks.
Abu Jandal al-Dimashqi, the self-declared leader of Tawhid and Jihad in Syria, said in an audio tape broadcast yesterday that some Fatah Islam members had left the northern Nahr el-Bared camp and warned the government to expect a “black day.”
The authenticity of the audio tape could not be verified, but it was posted on a Web site commonly used by Islamic militants.
Based on the confessions of the four Palestinians arrested Friday, authorities are searching for additional Fatah Islam suspects, the senior security official said.
Fatah Islam has been blamed for past attacks inside Lebanon. Interior Minister Hassan Sabie has said that members of the group confessed to bombing two buses near Beirut in February that killed three people and wounded 20.
Also today, Lebanese troops battled Fatah Islam militants in the streets of Nahr el-Bared, located near the northern port city of Tripoli, the state-run National News Agency reported.
It said the fighting left only pockets of resistance, with the militants taking shelter in underground tunnels.
“The army has largely tightened its control of the terrorists’ hideouts,” the NNA said, referring to Fatah Islam. “What are left are some fortified pockets inside very narrow alleys.”
The NNA said the army also pounded Fatah Islam’s remaining positions with heavy weapons, and witnesses reported billowing black smoke over the camp caused by artillery fire.
Responding to the shelling, the militants fired four Katyusha rockets, which landed in the village of Deir Amar, some three miles from the camp, causing damage to farm fields but no casualties, the news agency said.
Fatah Islam has been using the rockets recently to ease the army’s pressure, and two civilians have been killed in such attacks.
The army has refused to halt its nearly three-month-old offensive until the militants completely surrender, but the gunmen have vowed to fight to the death.
The conflict in Nahr el-Bared is Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war and has claimed the lives of 136 soldiers.
An undetermined number of militants – at least 60 – and more than 20 civilians have also died in the fighting.
Court officials have said that some 60 Fatah Islam members have been arrested since the fighting began and are being questioned about their involvement in terrorist acts and possession and use of weapons and explosives.
