New fight rips at a fragile Lebanon

The Lebanese Army continued to shell this refugee camp just north of Tripoli on Monday in the second day of its fight against a shadowy Islamic faction known as Fatah al-Islam.

The violence, the worst internal strife since the 1975-90 civil war, began early Sunday when Palestinian militants stormed the entrance of the seaside camp, home to 40,000 refugees, and overran Army positions. At least 71 people have been killed.

Lebanon may be confronting a prolonged siege with the group, which some say is linked to Al Qaeda. But it is also facing a larger battle as its fragile government struggles to maintain power in the wake of last summer's war and battles an opposition movement led by Syrian-backed Hizbullah.

In divided Lebanon, many have contradictory views of the true identity of Fatah al-Islam, which declared its existence late last year when it split from Fatah al-Intifada, a pro-Damascus Palestinian faction, and seized two of its bases in the seaside Nahr al-Bared camp. Is it an affiliate of Al Qaeda or a tool of Syrian military intelligence – or both?

The Lebanese government has vowed to crush the group once and for all, but says it will continue to abide by a longstanding agreement that prevents the state from entering Lebanon's 12 established Palestinian refugee camps.

"We have hermetically sealed them inside Nahr al-Bared, and we will use political and popular means and the Army to get rid of Fatah al-Islam," says Marwan Hamade, minister of telecommunications and leading anti-Syrian politician.

Palestinian factions have offered their support for the government's moves and have undertaken precautions to prevent any fighting in other refugee camps.

Fatah al-Islam is viewed with deep suspicion by other more moderate Palestinian groups, which should help ensure that the violence in Nahr al-Bared remains localized, analysts say.

After members of the group stormed the Army posts on Sunday, other militants deployed in central Tripoli to assist allies, some wanted by the Lebanese authorities on suspicion of carrying out a bank robbery a day earlier in the coastal town of Amioun, south of Tripoli.

Hundreds of Army reinforcements converged on Tripoli as a series of street battles broke out with the heavily armed militants.

Further fraying the nerves of the Lebanese, a large bomb exploded in a car park in eastern Beirut, killing one woman and wounding 12 on Sunday.

The government and its supporters in the anti-Syrian March 14 alliance accuse Syria of triggering the upsurge of violence. They say it's a Syrian reaction to the imminent adoption by the United Nations Security Council of an international tribunal to judge the killers of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister whose murder in February 2005 is widely blamed on Damascus.

Syria has denied any involvement in Mr. Hariri's death.

The tribunal lies at the heart of the six-month political crisis in Lebanon that has left the country politically and economically deadlocked.

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