The Lebanese army pounded positions of rocket-firing Islamists in heavy clashes around a refugee camp on Friday, as the military's death toll continued to climb.
Meanwhile, Fatah al-Islam militants fired 11 Katyusha-type rockets, most of which crashed in fields several kilometres to the northeast and south of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, without causing casualties, the army said, according to AFP. Two more troops died in the latest clashes, and another died of injuries from fierce fighting on Thursday, an army spokesman said, raising to nine its losses in two days.
The latest deaths have brought to at least 184 the number of people killed, including 95 soldiers and at least 68 Islamists, according to AFP. In heavy fightings on Thursday, the army lost six men, including an officer.
A civilian on a road outside the camp was also killed, but the Islamists' losses were unknown.
While artillery and tanks blasted the camp, the military said elite forces on the ground seized control of a number of buildings and Islamist positions, while army engineers cleared mines and demolished barriers. "The army continues to close in on the armed elements ... which are firing rockets blindly at neighbouring villages, killing a civilian (on Thursday) and wounding several others," a statement said.
"The terrorists continue to refuse to surrender and continue their inhuman behaviour by preventing members of their families from leaving the camp," according to the army.
A Palestinian source at nearby Beddawi camp, however, quoted in The Daily Star newspaper on Friday, said earlier it was the wives of the fighters who had refused to evacuate. "The wives said they want to die with their husbands," according to the source involved in arranging evacuations.
