28 Killed in Fierce Clashes in Beirut

Palestinian factions battled for control of Beirut’s refugee camps Friday and rival Shia Muslim militias fought each other in the slums around them. Police said 28 people were killed and 90 were wounded.

Ambulances raced through the streets of Muslim West Beirut. The American University Hospital said its emergency wards were filled.

Police said 16 people were killed and 50 were wounded in the Shia slums, where the fighting was between the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, or Party of God, and the mainstream Amal militia allied with Syria.

The Lebanese Red Cross said its volunteers took at least 23 wounded from the slums to hospitals in West Beirut, which is policed by the Syrian army.

“Dozens of other bleeding fighters lay on the streets,” a Red Cross official said. “We could not help them because of the intensity of sniping.”

It was the heaviest fighting among Shias since a four-day Amal crackdown on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon last month in which 62 people were killed and 150 wounded.

Twelve combatants were killed and 40 wounded in the Chatilla and Borj el Brajne refugee camps, police reported. The struggle there involves Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat’s Fatah guerrillas and Abu Moussa’s Syrian-backed group Fatah-Uprising.