Lebanese troops battled Islamist militants based in a Palestinian refugee camp on Sunday and 48 people were killed in Lebanon's bloodiest internal fighting since the 1975-90 civil war.Twenty-three soldiers and 19 militants died in the clashes, which erupted before dawn on the edge of the Nahr al-Bared camp and in the nearby Sunni Muslim city of Tripoli in north Lebanon.
A cabinet minister said the fighting with Fatah al-Islam, which the government says is backed by Syria, seemed timed to try to derail U.N. moves to set up an international court to try those suspected of carrying out political killings in Lebanon.
Four of the soldiers were killed in an attack on an army patrol in al-Qalamoun just south of Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city, security sources said.
They said 15 militants were killed when troops stormed buildings they had occupied in Tripoli and four in the camp, home to 40,000 refugees. Medical sources in the camp said six civilians, including two children, were killed and 60 wounded.
The army was blasting militant positions in the camp with tank, mortar and machinegun fire, a military source said. More than 20 soldiers were wounded overall, the source added.