Sporadic shooting rattled around a refugee camp in Lebanon yesterday after a night of gunbattles as the army battled to wipe out an al-Qaeda-inspired militia holed up inside.
Fighting was continuing on the 18th day of a deadly standoff between troops and the Sunni extremist group Fatah al-Islam, amid reports the resolve of the besieged militants was weakening and some were surrendering.
"The terrorists fired off a volley of shots from light weapons towards army positions on Wednesday [yesterday]," an army spokesman said.
"The shooting followed a night of army bombardments against positions of Fatah al-Islam, which opened fire with heavy weapons against our soldiers encircling the camp," he said.
The clashes erupted on May 20 around Nahr al-Bared and the nearby Mediterranean port city of Tripoli, rapidly deteriorating into the deadliest internal fighting Lebanon has seen since the 1975 to 1990 civil war.
Security has also been shaken by a series of bomb blasts in and around Beirut and police yesterday said a bomb was defused on a road leading to popular beaches in the southern port city of Tyre, a stronghold of Shiite militant groups in Lebanon.
Three Sunni militiamen hiding inside the Nahr al-Bared camp gave themselves up on Tuesday, with more seeking guarantees of safety if they do, the mainstream Palestinian faction Fatah said.
"Fatah al-Islam is in terminal phase, as its members are deserting its ranks," Fatah's leader in Lebanon Sultan Abu al-Aynayn said.
He said three gunmen had surrendered and handed over their weapons and that 18 others said they had stopped fighting and were seeking guarantees to turn themselves in, leaving only about 75 militiamen still fighting.
There was no confirmation from the Islamist group, which has vowed to fight "until the last drop of blood."
"We have information that there were some elements which gave themselves up, but the army has not received any of them," an army spokesman said. "We have information that some elements have also dropped their arms and left the fight, as many of them are in poor spirits.
"Now the army is continuing to tighten the noose on the gunmen, respond to the source of fire, track down armed elements and clear areas where there are explosives," he said.
During a lull in fighting on Tuesday, a convoy of ambulances and trucks loaded with medicine entered the squalid camp to supply the refugees still remaining amid fears of a humanitarian crisis.
In all, 108 people have been killed in 18 days of the unrest that has served to exacerbate a tensions in a deeply divided country already in the grip of an acute political crisis.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has warned Fatah al-Islam to surrender or be wiped out.
Meanwhile, Fatah al-Islam military commander Shahin Shahin threatened to take the fight to other parts of Lebanon and beyond if the Lebanese army did not stop attacking a Palestinian refugee camp.
"If the army continues to bomb civilians and pursue its inhumane practices ... we will move within the next two days to the second phase of the battle," Shahin said during a telephone interview yesterday.
"We will show them the capabilities of Fatah al-Islam, starting with Lebanon and then moving to the whole of Greater Syria," he said, using a term intended to include what is now Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
RSS