Islamists fire rockets as Lebanese army pounds camp hideout

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NAHR AL-BARED, (Lebanon), July 13 (AFP): Lebanese army artillery Friday pounded a camp in which Islamist fighters are holed up, in renewed heavy clashes almost eight weeks into a bloody showdown in northern Lebanon.
Fatah al-Islam militants fired seven Katyusha-type rockets, in three salvos, that crashed in fields up to seven kilometres (four miles) to the northeast and south of Nahr al-Bared camp, without causing casualties, the military said.
The fighting erupted on May 20 when the Islamist militants launched a string of attacks on soldiers, killing 27 of them around the camp and in Tripoli, according to the army.
The Lebanese government has vowed to wipe out Fatah al-Islam, a shadowy band of Arab Islamist fighters inspired by the ideology of Osama bin Laden's terror network.
On Friday, a seventh soldier was killed in clashes between the military and dozens of the Islamist holdouts in the besieged Palestinian refugee camp, near the port city of Tripoli, an army spokesman told AFP.
Along with the bombardment, soldiers and Islamists were also locked in heavy exchanges of gunfire on the ground, a correspondent at the scene said.
"A soldier was killed today by shots from positions" held by Fatah al-Islam, the spokesman said, following a day of fierce fighting in which the army lost six men, including an officer.
A civilian on a road outside the camp was also killed on Thursday, but the Islamists' losses were unknown as they have been out of contact from inside the bombed-out shantytown for several weeks.
"Our soldiers are moving forward slowly but surely, from building to building, towards the positions of the terrorists who have booby- trapped buildings, rubble and alleyways," he said.
The spokesman said army engineers were working alongside the elite units of the army.
Evacuation operations have been stalled since Wednesday when relief workers tried in vain to rescue the fighters' families -- about 45 children and 20 women -- who failed to turn up at the agreed meeting point.
A "safe zone" inside Nahr al-Bared set up by Palestinian militants has been abandoned since the mainstream groups evacuated the seafront camp on Wednesday ahead of an anticipated final assault to flush out the Islamists.
About 80 remaining Fatah al-Islam fighters are being supported by dozens of pro-Syrian Palestinian militants, according to a Palestinian source, citing the mainstream Palestinian activists who were evacuated.