Deadly clashes spread in Lebanon camps as bomb hits capital

SIDON (AFP) - Lebanese authorities faced Wednesday new fronts in their battle to crush an Al-Qaeda-inspired militia after deadly firefights broke out in a second Palestinian camp and a bus bombing in the capital.

Residents of Ain al-Helweh, the largest of Lebanon's 12 refugee camps in the southern city of Sidon, were plunged into panic Monday by the gunbattles between the army and Sunni Muslim extremists which first flared the night before outside the camp.

Two soldiers and two militants were killed and 11 wounded, a military spokesman said, and dozens of families fled to safety before calm was restored later Monday.

But in the evening a bomb ripped through a public bus in Christian east Beirut wounding at least seven people, a security source said.

The explosion in the mixed residential and industrial district of Sed al-Baushrieh was the fourth to rock Lebanon since the clashes between the army and the Islamists broke out on May 20 and Information Minister Ghazi Aridi was swift to link the two.

"The bombings and the clashes are connected," he said after an emergency cabinet meeting.

Footage broadcast by Lebanese television showed the bus had been burned out by the force of the explosion. Several parked cars and the facade of a nearby shopping centre were also badly damaged.

The security source said that one suspect had been arrested as police cordoned off the area.

The new violence came as Lebanese troops again pounded Fatah al-Islam gunmen in the Nahr al-Bared camp near the northern port city of Tripoli in a 17-day standoff that has left more than 100 people dead.

In a bid to contain the latest unrest, the army deployed more armoured vehicles around Ain al-Helweh and boosted security in Sidon where schools were closed, many shops remained shut and traffic was slow.

"We cannot feel safe when there are lawless areas with armed Islamists," complained businessman Mohamad Zein as hundreds of Palestinian refugees set up temporary homes in the city's parks.

The fighting pitted troops against gunmen from Jund al-Sham (Soldiers of Damascus), a little known group mainly made up of Islamist Lebanese extremists, some of them wanted.

Palestinian factions, which have sole control over security in Ain al-Helweh as in all other camps across the country, were in contact with Lebanese authorities to try to end the confrontation, local officials told AFP.

The latest flareup has fuelled concerns the violence could spread to more of the 12 camps which hold more than half of the 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, mostly in conditions of abject poverty, and have become breeding grounds for extremism.

In all, 108 people have been killed in 17 days of bloodshed, the deadliest internal feuding since the 1975-1990 civil war that has added to tensions in a country already in the grip of an acute political crisis.

Jund al-Sham, which has no clear hierarchy or particular leader, is believed to have about 50 militants armed with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

In north Lebanon, army troops including about 1,000 crack commandos were tightening the noose around the militants holed up in Nahr al-Bared, where both sides are vowing to fight to the end.

After a lull in exchanges during the day, tanks and artillery launched a major bombardment on Monday evening against the squalid camp, where Fatah al-Islam is still holding out in the face of superior firepower.

"We will never surrender... we will fight till the last drop of blood," Fatah al-Islam spokesman Abu Salim Taha told Al-Jazeera television on Sunday.

Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has warned Fatah al-Islam to surrender or be wiped out.

Washington announced that it was considering sending more supplies to the Lebanese army after Congress last month approved a seven-fold increase in military assistance for 2007 to 280 million dollars.

"There are some additional items that are already under consideration that we are talking about with the Lebanese forces," said US national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

The earlier US aid package had already drawn strong criticism from Russia whose Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned of its potential to "destabilise" Lebanon.

It is not known whether the army is planning a ground assault on Nahr al-Bared. By longstanding convention, it does not enter Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, leaving security inside to militant groups.

Fatah al-Islam, a tiny but well-armed band of Sunni extremists which first surfaced only last year, is believed to have about 250 fighters, according to the prime minister.

Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper reported on Sunday that arrested members of the group had confessed it was planning a September 11-style attack in Beirut and bombings to isolate the north and proclaim an Islamic state there.