Clashes - and talks - continue in North

Daily Star
By Hani M. Bathish
Friday, June 01, 2007

BEIRUT: Clashes resumed Thursday night around the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli, with intermittent gunfire breaking out after a day of "uneasy calm" during which the army continued to strengthen its positions around the camp while Palestinian clerics pressed their mediation efforts. Sheikh Mohammed al-Hajj, who leads the delegation of Palestinian clerics trying to mediate a peaceful solution to the standoff, told The Daily Star that efforts are continuing and rumors that mediation efforts had failed are not true.

"We will not go into details, but the fact that mediations are continuing shows that everyone is keen to resolve the issue and prevent any further negative repercussions on the camp residents or the Lebanese people from further military operations," Hajj said.

Another army soldier, Adjutant Hatem Hatem, died after being hit by sniper fire near Nahr al-Bared on Wednesday night. Three other soldiers sustained minor wounds during clashes early Thursday morning. Fighting eventually died down by around 7 a.m.

"The situation is still tense," a senior army source said. "There is an uneasy calm with some intermittent gunfire, but we respond with intensity to the source of any hostile fire."

Another army source said the army will not wait forever to end the standoff.

"We will only give as much time as it takes to exhaust mediation efforts," he warned.

A French-made Gazelle helicopter was spotted in the air over the camp Thursday morning, reportedly carrying rockets and missiles, but the army source said the mission was just a reconnaissance flight.

While the Tripoli-Abde highway remained open on Thursday, danger from snipers remained a major concern.

"Militants from the camp often try to infiltrate our positions to be able to snipe at the road, but we continue to stop them and have inflicted serious casualties on them," the senior army source said.

Lebanese Army commander General Michel Suleiman visited troops stationed around the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp

on Thursday morning, inspecting front-line positions and then meeting with the families of soldiers killed during the fighting. Suleiman said the army would not rest before obtaining justice, an issue on which he warned that there could be no compromise.

During his meeting with officers at the front, Suleiman stressed his determination to apprehend and bring to justice those who attacked the army and innocent Lebanese civilians.

"This criminal gang has nothing to do with our Arab cultural traditions nor with the just Palestinian cause," the general said. "We found that most of those arrested by the army are not Palestinian, but are mercenaries of various nationalities carrying out a terrorist plot."
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The army commander met with families in the North whose sons died in the performance of their duty. He said the army was proud of the North, which represents the main source of the army's manpower. He described the North as the Lebanese Army's "lifeblood," a region which had offered up its best and brightest "on the altar of the country's sovereignty and freedom."

Suleiman added that what Israel failed to inflict in its attacks on army positions in Abde during the summer war last year, Fatah al-Islam tried to inflict in its attacks on the same army positions: "Both have thus found a common goal, which is to assail the army's unity and cohesion."

Fatah's representative in Lebanon, Abbas Zaki, said Thursday that a new Nakba, the name used to refer to the catastrophe of 1948, had befallen the Palestinian people. "What pains us," he said, "is that the group responsible for this catastrophe carries the name of Fatah, Palestine and Islam."

Zaki, who spoke at a news conference at the nearby Beddawi refugee camp, chaired a meeting earlier of Palestinian Liberation Organization factions to discuss developments in Nahr al-Bared, the Fatah al-Islam problem and the living conditions of the displaced.

He focused on the question of when the displaced would be allowed back to Nahr al-Bared, adding: "We received a pledge by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, in the presence of Arab ambassadors, that the return to the camp is his first priority, as well as rebuilding it."

Zaki said that he did not find a single closed door during discussions with Lebanese officials, adding that Defense Minister Elias Murr has instructed the army that "he does not want a single innocent civilian casualty." According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 23 Palestinian civilians have been killed in the fighting.

Referring to Fatah al-Islam, Zaki said "this phenomenon" hid behind civilians, adding that he was supportive of any solution reached to eject them from the camp: "If there was a one-in-a-million chance that any [country] would receive [the militants], I will be the first to agree to this solution."

He described Fatah al-Islam as a "non-exportable commodity," and said he doubted any country would accept them.

"I am prepared to get them lawyers from around the world and make a big issue out of this to solve the problem in accordance with the law [and] not by violent means," Zaki said. "If they respond positively, their families' safety would be our responsibility, but they have to stand trial first."