Al Qaeda-inspired militants battling the Lebanese army for more than 10 weeks hit a main power station in north Lebanon with Katyusha rockets on Thursday, disrupting electricity supplies to wide areas. Security sources said Fatah Al Islam militants, holed up in Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, fired half a dozen rockets at Deir Amar power station. At least two rockets hit the plant. Kamal Hayek, the chairman of the state-owned electricity company, told LebanonÂ’s official news agency that production at the 400-megawatt facility was halted while damage was assessed.
In Beirut, military experts defused a Katyusha rocket wired to a timer and set to explode, security sources said. The device was found near the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra. The destruction of Nahr Al-Bared camp, usually home to 40,000 refugees, has angered Palestinians across Lebanon, although very few of them support Fatah Al-Islam. Separately, two Lebanese soldiers were killed in the refugee camp battle, a military spokesman said. “Two soldiers were killed in the confrontations today,” the spokesman told AFP. He earlier said one of the dead was an officer.