Clashes with militants kill 6 Lebanese troops

Fierce clashes between government forces and Islamic militants left at least six soldiers dead Thursday on the anniversary of the war last summer that stretched Lebanon to the breaking point.

The Lebanese army fired artillery and tank shells into the Nahr el Bared refugee camp near the northern coastal city of Tripoli. A well-armed radical Sunni group called Fatah al Islam, which shares the ideology of Al Qaeda, has quartered itself in the camp that was home to 40,000 Palestinian refugees before the fighting started May 20.

Television footage showed thick plumes of black smoke rising from the camp, which has been the scene of fierce fighting since the conflict began.

“It’s the fireworks,” Mustapha abu Harb, a spokesman for the Palestinian group Fatah, said by telephone with the sound of explosions in the background. His group is not affiliated with Fatah al Islam.

An army spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said at least 12 soldiers were wounded in the fighting. He said the military did not know how many Fatah al Islam fighters had been killed, but he estimated that 100 to 150 remained in the camp.

The spokesman did not specify how the army casualties occurred but said the battle at Nahr el Bared had entered a critical phase, with troops leaving their vehicles to move on foot.

“That’s a dangerous situation, as there are a lot of Fatah al Islam snipers on the top of the buildings,” he said.

Army officials who also requested anonymity have tried to quash rumors that the military was preparing for an all-out assault on the camp. Lebanese forces are forbidden to enter the site under the terms of a decades-old international treaty.

The intensified fighting coincided with the anniversary of the monthlong war last year between the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah and Israel. That conflict destabilized an already-shaky Lebanon by squelching the country’s economy and further polarizing the factionalized nation of 4 million, whose sizable Christian, Shiite, Sunni and Druze communities are jostling for power.

Lebanon is also home to about 400,000 Palestinians displaced after the 1948 creation of Israel.

In the year since the war, the United States and Europe have bolstered Lebanon’s army as a way to strengthen a weak central government often under the sway of regional and local powers. But reconstruction has lagged while the country’s politicians squabble, draining confidence in the government.

The army’s inability to break the stalemate with Fatah al Islam has hurt its image, though military leaders say the force can stabilize Lebanon.

“The army is aware that the situation is delicate,” said a communique issued by the military Thursday. “But the Nahr el Bared battle shows that the army is able to win against terrorism and to exterminate it from its roots.”

Fatah al Islam includes fighters from across the Arab world. Lebanon’s U.S.-backed anti-Syrian political elite accuses the government in Damascus of backing the militant group. Other analysts, including New Yorker investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, contend that radical Sunni militants were allowed into Lebanon to be used as a tool by the Sunni-led government against Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.

In a speech this week to mark the start of last year’s war, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called for “putting a final end” to the festering conflict in Nahr el Bared, where a small number of Palestinians remain. Thousands have fled to other Palestinian refugee camps, raising humanitarian concerns.

The population of the nearby Bedawi camp has grown to 35,000 from 15,000 since the fighting began, said Joanna Nassar, a United Nations official in Lebanon.

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daragahi@latimes.com

Special correspondent Moughanie reported from Beirut and Times staff writer Daragahi from Cairo.