An uneasy calm has settled in northern Lebanon a day after the government claimed to have "crushed" Islamist fighters at a Palestinian refugee camp and declared victory. Leaders of Fatah al-Islam at the Nahr al-Bared camp were on the run, Defense Minister Elias Murr said on Thursday.Officials said sporadic explosions on Friday were caused by soldiers blowing up booby-trapped buildings and mines. A month of fighting has left 170 people dead in Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war. Murr told Lebanese TV that the army had "crushed those terrorists".
"What is happening now is some clean-up that the army's heroes are carrying out, and dismantling some mines," he said.
'In hiding'
A group of Palestinian Muslim clerics that had tried to mediate during the clashes, said Fatah al-Islam had declared a ceasefire. One of the clerics, Sheik Mohammed Haj, told Associated Press news agency that the militants would "comply with the Lebanese army's decision to end military operations".
Troops would continue to pursue the leaders and remaining fighters of Fatah al-Islam, Murr said. He said they were believed to be hiding deep within the refugee camp among the civilian population, suggesting some clashes could still flare up inside the camp as a result.
Nahr al-Bared, near the northern city of Tripoli, was home to 31,000 people before the fighting broke out. Approximately 2,000 refugees are now believed to be inside the camp. Large parts of the camp have been left in ruins after a bitter struggle that began in late May when the Lebanese army tried to arrest a number of alleged members of Fatah al-Islam.
Lebanon has 12 refugee camps housing more than 350,000 Palestinians, many of whom fled or were forced to leave their homes when Israel was created in 1948. There is a long-standing convention that Lebanon's army does not go into the camps, leaving security inside to militant groups.
The Lebanese government believes Fatah al-Islam is backed by Syrian intelligence, a claim Syria denies. Syria has closed a border crossing in the north-east of Lebanon for "security" reasons. Damascus closed two other crossings when fighting first broke out in the camp, also for safety reasons. Only the Masnaa crossing remains open.
Fatah al-Islam militants will leave 'in coffins'
An Islamist preacher barred from Britain two years ago for his radical views says the militants besieged in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon will be destroyed. A Lebanese of Syrian origin who headed the radical al-Muhajiroun group in London until 2004, Omar Bakri Mohammed says the militants will "pay" for the conflict. "Attacking the Lebanese army the way they did was very wrong. They made a big mistake and now they are going to pay for it - they're going to be destroyed," Bakri said. "[They] are going to be killed. You will not hear a single complaint in Lebanon. They have not even called for their 'Islam brothers' to come to their rescue."
He said the Lebanese Army had the full support of all Sunni Muslims in the country to succeed in their avowed aim of crushing Fatah al-Islam. "These people inside have only one way out - in a coffin. They have no way out, specially the Saudi jihadists. If they're sent to Saudi Arabia they will be hanged," Mr Bakri said.
He said defeat for the militants would be a lesson for jihadists everywhere. "They will see that if they have no support from indigenous people they're going to be killed," he said. The Lebanese army has insisted right from the beginning on the surrender of Fatah al-Islam fighters ,but its leaders vowed to fight till death.