Nearly 98 Fatah al-Islam militants killed during battles with the Lebanese army since May were buried Thursday in a mass grave in the northern city of Tripoli. Wrapped in white shrouds and placed in numbered wooden coffins the bodies of the 98 slain militants, most of them from Gulf Arab countries, were buried in four mass graves in the Ghorabaa cemetary in the Bab al Tabaneh neighbourhood of Tripoli. A Sunni Muslim sheikh performed the prayer before the burial ceremony. A Lebanese security source said the countries to which the militants belonged refused to receive their bodies, 'so we decided to bury them in this grave.' The buried militants included Fatah al-Islam number two, Shebab Kaddour, a Lebanese national also known as Abu Hureira, who was killed during a clash in Tripoli in August.
According to Lebanese security sources, some 222 militants were killed and more than 100 others were arrested during the clashes that took place inside the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. 168 Lebanese soldiers were also killed in the clashes.