Death toll in Lebanon rises to 60

Radical Islamic group targeted in refugee camp

TRIPOLI, Lebanon -- Lebanese tanks and artillery pounded a Palestinian refugee camp in this northern Lebanese city for the second straight day yesterday, trying to trap members of a radical Islamist group and raising concerns for thousands trapped inside.

Government officials said at least 60 people had been killed -- 30 soldiers, 15 militants, and 15 civilians -- in the fighting that began when a police raid on bank robbers early Sunday escalated into one of Lebanon's most significant security crises since the end of the civil war.

The militant group, Fatah al Islam, which is thought to have links to Al Qaeda, fired antiaircraft guns and mortars and had night vision goggles and other sophisticated equipment. The Lebanese Army does not have such gear.

Lebanese television stations reported that among the dead militants were men from Bangladesh, Yemen, and other Arab countries, although the reports could not be confirmed. Security officials said some of the men wore explosive belts used by suicide bombers.

Around the outskirts of the camp, called Nahr el-Bared, the scene was reminiscent of Leba non's civil war in the 1980s, with tanks and heavy armor rumbling past, occasionally opening fire at buildings in the camp, while snipers on rooftops fired at anything that moved inside.

Terrified drivers on the main road north of the city scrambled across trying to avoid being hit in the crossfire as army checkpoints inspected cars in search of militants seeking to escape the camp.

Troops were ordered to shell any building that returned fire, one official said, while members of Fatah al Islam threatened to take the fight across the country.

At one point, the battle appeared to be moving out of the camp as several of the militants tried to come onto the main road, only to face a hail of machine gun fire.

"Their goal is to destroy this country," said Ahmad Marouk, who stood outside the entrance to the camp early yesterday watching the fighting. "The army is unprepared for this, and their bases are not prepared."

Three soldiers were killed and several others were wounded in an attack on an army post outside Nahr el-Bared late last night. The civilian death count was expected to grow because rescue workers had not been able to venture deep into the camp and take a detailed survey of the victims.

During a two-hour cease-fire yesterday afternoon, the Red Cross was allowed to evacuate 16 injured people from the camp, a spokesman for the aid agency said. But the fighting quickly resumed when the militants broke the cease-fire, Lebanon's official news agency reported.

Among those killed in the battles on Sunday was a fugitive suspect in a failed train bombing in Germany last year, authorities and family members said. Saddam al Hajdib, who had escaped Germany with his brother, Youssef, after planning what the German authorities last summer said was the gravest terrorist threat in the country since the hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001, were plotted in Hamburg, died with his brother Amer when security forces descended on the building where they were hiding out in a wealthy neighborhood in Tripoli, said his father, Mohammad al Hajdib.

The authorities said that the two Hajdib brothers were hiding out in the building with several of the Fatah al Islam bank robbers.

Meanwhile, in central Beirut, a car bomb exploded in a parking area late last night, the second such attack in two days, increasing anxiety across an already tense city.

The explosion, which took place in the Muslim neighborhood of Verdun, south of the Hamra district, wounded six people and set two buildings on fire, residents in the area said.

Many Lebanese speculated that the bombing was intended as a warning by militants rather than as a major assault intended to inflict severe damage.

Soldiers with Kalashnikovs were quickly deployed into the streets. Armored personnel carriers blocked off sections of road, and some major avenues seemed to have soldiers posted on every block. It was the tightest security in Beirut in months.

Members of Fatah al Islam have been charged in previous bombing attacks in Beirut, and some civilians in the capital said that the recent series of explosions had to be related to the fighting in Tripoli.

The continuing violence is one of the most significant challenges to the Lebanese army since the end of Lebanon's bloody civil war and raised fears that other militants that operate in Lebanon's 12 refugee camps may grow more active, presenting the army with an even bigger security challenge.

That, in turn, raised the possibility of a deadly conclusion to the crisis, placing strains on the embattled government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

Fatah al Islam has been a growing concern for security authorities in Lebanon and much of the region. Intelligence officials say that the group counts between 150 and 200 fighters in its ranks and that it subscribes to the fundamentalist precepts of Al Qaeda.

Leaders of the group have in the past said that they aimed to send trained fighters into Iraq.

Lebanese officials accuse Syria of having organized and funded the group. Syria's foreign minister, speaking to reporters yesterday, countered that Syria had sought to arrest the group's leaders and had an interest in crushing them.

Security was stepped up in other camps amid growing concern that the unrest might spread there, government officials said.

In Ain al Hilweh, one of the largest Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon, tensions rose as Lebanese troops surrounded the camp and armed groups inside went on alert.

A spokesman for Fatah al Islam, Abu Salim, told The Associated Press that if the Lebanese Army did not stop the bombardment of Nahr el-Bared, the militants would step up rocket and artillery fire "and would take the battle outside Tripoli."

While not wanting to seem weak in the face of the militant challenge, the government and the military also want to avoid scenes that might draw comparisons with the Israeli attacks on Palestinian camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, military observers said.

Refugees who were evacuated from the camp expressed a growing anger among many Palestinians about the conflict.

"We thought it was Israel doing this," said Subhiya Hassan, a Palestinian whose husband was killed and all four children were wounded in the shelling on Sunday. "We never thought that the army would attack us like this."

Lebanese officials said yesterday in a statement that they did not intend to harm the Palestinians.

Nada Bakri contributed to this report from Tripoli, and Edward Wong from Beirut.