Militant group’s leader died in battle, Lebanon army says

The head of an Al Qaeda-inspired group that waged a three-month battle with Lebanese forces in a Palestinian refugee camp was killed in weekend clashes, an army spokesman confirmed Monday.

The body of Shaker Abbsi, Fatah al Islam’s leader, was identified by his wife at the morgue of a state-run hospital in the northern city of Tripoli, the military official said. Abbsi had been convicted in absentia in the 2002 murder of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan.

“His body was among those of the 28 fighters killed in Sunday’s clashes,” said the official, who requested anonymity. “We are now conducting DNA tests on his corpse to be absolutely sure.”

Clashes continued around the battered camp Monday as troops encircled small groups of militants. Explosions and gunshots were heard by local residents, and a highway near the camp, known as Nahr el Bared, was closed to traffic for a few hours.

“A group of five fighters who were still holed up in the camp clashed with army troops and were all killed,” said an army source, also requesting anonymity. “Four of the fighters were shot and the fifth blew himself up.”

Earlier, troops battled another band of radicals, killing two and arresting three others, according to the state-run news agency. Two soldiers were wounded in the clashes, the agency said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora declared victory over the militant group in a televised speech Sunday.

The fighting, which started May 20, left more than 300 dead, including more than 150 soldiers. It resulted in the displacement of about 31,000 Palestinian refugees, who are mostly staying in an overcrowded refugee camp nearby.

“In days it will be safe again to enter the camp,” the army spokesman said. “The army is now clearing the camp of mines and explosives.”

But the return of thousands of refugees to their homes is not guaranteed any time soon because most of the buildings were heavily damaged or destroyed by months of aerial and artillery bombardment. The Lebanese government said the Nahr el Bared camp, which for the most part housed displaced Palestinians, would be reconstructed with donations coming mainly from oil-rich Arab countries.

Abbsi, a Palestinian Jordanian national, formed Fatah al Islam with a few hundred fighters last year in northern Lebanon as an offshoot of a Syrian-backed Palestinian faction. In 2004, he was sentenced to death in Jordan for his involvement in the assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley two years earlier in Amman, the Jordanian capital.