THE military commander of Fatah al-Islam, which led a 15-week uprising against the Lebanese army this summer, has been captured in a northern refugee camp, a camp official said today. "Nasser Ismail was captured by a (Palestinian) security force in the camp of Beddawi," Abu Ali Fares, a spokesman for Palestinian factions in the refugee camp said."The force raided the house of a relative of Nasser Ismail and found him hiding in the attic with another person," Mr Fares said. "He was taken aboard a Red Crescent ambulance during the night of Sunday to Monday. He was handed over to the (Lebanese) army intelligence services."
Beddawi camp is where many of the civilians driven from their homes in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp further north by the fighting between Fatah al-Islam and the army were given emergency shelter. Ismail's wife remains in Beddawi, where, as in Lebanon's other camps, security is left to the Palestinian factions by longstanding convention, Mr Fares said.
Khalil Dib, an official of the Palestinian faction Fatah al-Intifada, said that Ismail told him while in the custody of the Palestinian forces that he had been in Nahr al-Bared until Saturday before heading to Beddawi. Since Nahr al-Bared fell on September 2, the Lebanese army has been combing the whole area for fugitive militants, including Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker al-Abssi. Dib said that according to Ismail, "Shaker al-Abssi left Nahr al-Bared one month before the end of the battle" on September 2.
More than 400 people died in the fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, including at least 222 Islamists. One more soldier died last Friday, raising the army's losses to 168.