The Lebanese army has resumed its shelling of the last pockets of Islamists holed up at a Palestinian refugee camp as the death toll among the troops rose to 113, an army official said Saturday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one soldier was killed Friday in the standoff at the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon and another in battles during the week.More than 200 people have died since the conflict with the Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam militants erupted on May 20, in the worst internal clashes in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war. "The army is still conducting demining operations inside the camp and removing booby-traps," the army official said. "The soldiers are advancing but at a very slow pace."
The shelling Saturday was intermittent and the Islamists were responding with small arms fire, witnesses said. Fatah al-Islam fighters are said to control a tiny area inside the camp and have refused repeated calls to surrender along with their wives and children. Loudspeakers on Friday blared messages urging the families of the Islamists to leave the camp, large parts of which have been reduced to rubble.
The Lebanese army has accused the Islamists of using their wives and children as human shields, but refugees who fled the camp said the spouses were refusing to leave their husbands behind and feared interrogation by Lebanese security services. "During our last contacts with people inside the camp a few days ago, it appeared that the women wished to stay which would make an evacuation of only the children extremely difficult," a representative from a relief organization who did not wish to be named told reporters.
Lebanese television also reported that the women, all veiled from head to toe, were refusing to be searched, prompting fears that some of the Islamists could use disguises to leave the camp undetected. The television said the army was considering bringing in female police officers to search any women leaving the camp.