4 Die in Fighting at Camp in Southern Lebanon

TRIPOLI, Lebanon, June 4 — Two soldiers and two militants were killed in fighting in the southern Lebanese refugee camp of Ain al Hilwe early Monday. The deaths sealed a night of violence in northern and southern Lebanon that caused fears that the 16-day siege of a refugee camp on the outskirts of this northern Lebanese town may have spread.

In a series of skirmishes that began Sunday afternoon, militants with the Islamist group Jund al Sham opened fire on Lebanese soldiers. A brief cease-fire after a three-hour fight ended late at night, and in the ensuing firefight, numerous houses inside the camp were set on fire and the four men died, military officials said.

Lebanese troops on Monday morning also continued an offensive against militants of the Fatah al Islam group in the Nahr al Bared camp in the north, where a siege has continued for more than two weeks. The militant group in the southern camp is allied with Fatah al Islam.

At least 114 people have been killed in the 16-day siege of the northern camp, which began when security men raided an apartment in Tripoli seeking bank robbers, touching off the fight with Fatah al Islam.

A tenuous calm, at times broken by occasional shelling, set in over both camps Monday afternoon as Palestinian and religious leaders sought to calm tempers in Ain al Hilwe and to negotiate an end to the fighting at Nahr al Bared. Palestinian factions held talks with the army command in Sidon, near the southern camp, on Monday morning. At the same time, heavily armed Jund al Sham fighters agreed to cede their positions to militiamen from other Islamist groups in Ain al Hilwe, where more than 47,000 refugees live, to stabilize the situation.

As if to underscore the fleeting nature of the calm, a bomb went off in an empty bus in an industrial area east of Beirut on Monday, wounding 10 bystanders and smashing windows in nearby buildings.

Despite sporadic gunfire in Nahr al Bared, aid agencies worked to get water and food into the camp. Aid workers said a few civilians had managed to escape the camp. The United Nations refugee agency warned that conditions inside were significantly worsening and made an appeal for more money to assist refugees who had escaped the camp.

Thousands of refugees from the camp have escaped over the past two weeks, but the Red Cross and other aid groups estimated that about 6,000 residents had remained trapped in the cross-fire. Reporters have been banned from the camp and have been forced to move to an area away from the fighting, making it difficult to confirm reports from either side.

The army continued to reinforce its positions on Monday and brought in more armor, men and supplies, possibly in preparation for another push against Fatah al Islam.

Source : www.nytimes.com