Lebanon Presses Offensive

The Lebanese military, flush from their difficult military campaign against Fatah al Islam, is pressing the offensive by going after terrorists elsewhere in the country.

Lebanese troops killed seven Islamist militants, most of them foreigners, in a raid on their hideout in the northern city of Tripoli on Sunday, while sporadic battles shook a nearby Palestinian refugee camp.

Security sources said one soldier was killed and 14 were wounded during the 10-hour siege of an apartment building. The militants killed a policeman, his 4-year-old daughter and a relative who all lived in the building.

The army said it had found weapons, ammunition and electronic booby trap equipment in the apartment.

The dead militants, who included a Lebanese woman, were not members of Fatah al-Islam, which has been fighting an army assault on its stronghold in the Nahr al-Bared camp north of Tripoli for the past five weeks, the security sources said.

But it was information from a captured Fatah al-Islam member that led the army to the apartment where the shootout erupted.

Two floors of the five-storey building were blackened and burned in the fighting. Holes from shells, grenades and bullets punctured its facade. A pool of blood lay on the pavement.

The violence in the north has complicated a political crisis that pits Lebanon's Western-backed government against opponents led by the pro-Syrian Shi'ite Hezbollah and Amal factions.

Fatah al-Islam, a new group on Lebanon's tangled political scene, split from a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction last year with some 200 fighters. Since then it has drawn scores of Arab jihadis, including Iraq war veterans, to its Nahr al-Bared base.

Before Sunday's Tripoli raid, security sources had said the group was pursuing a bizarre plan to set up an Islamic emirate in north Lebanon and invite mujahideen from round the world to join it in fighting "Jews, crusaders (Westerners) and infidels."

Fatah al-Islam leaders deny direct links to al Qaeda, but say they sympathies with it. The militants killed in the Tripoli hideout were suspected of belonging to a group with closer ties to Osama bin Laden's network, the security sources said.

Using intel developed from the capture of Fatah al Islam terrorists, they tracked down this group of jihadis, who are foreign fighters - and quite possibly al Qaeda. These terrorists are finding common cause and the concern that al Qaeda jihadis who have fought in Iraq are going elsewhere because they are being aggressively hunted down in Iraq may be coming to pass, including in Lebanon.

UPDATE:
Via LGF, three Spanish peacekeepers were killed in an attack on their position in South Lebanon. Wasn't it UNIFIL's job to prevent militias from being armed and operating in South Lebanon. This is the second time in a week that UNIFIL has failed, despite UNIFIL leaders claiming that they've done their job.

UPDATE:
Lo and behold, we get this wonderful tidbit in a follow up piece on the bombing that resulted in six UNIFIL peacekeepers killed:

A car bomb killed six U.N. peacekeepers on patrol in southern Lebanon Sunday in the first attack on the international force since it was expanded after last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.

In the north, 10 people died in the latest battle between Lebanese troops and Sunni militants, who have threatened to start launching attacks in other parts of Lebanon.

Among those condemning the attack on the peacekeepers was the Shiite Hezbollah, which called it a "suspicious act that harms the people of the south and of Lebanon." The militant group has had good relations with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon , known as UNIFIL, since the troops were first deployed in 1978.

The U.N. has since become increasingly involved in highly divisive issues in Lebanon, including its tense relations with neighboring Syria.

UNIFIL said in a statement that the six peacekeepers were killed and two others seriously wounded in an "apparent car bomb attack" while they were on patrol.

UNIFIL is directed by the UN SC 1701, 1559, and other resolutions to disarm Hizbullah and all militias operating in Lebanon. What exactly does this report mean when it says that UNIFIL has good relations with Hizbullah? Does this mean that UNIFIL looks the other way while Hizbullah continues its grim work of plotting war against Israel, complete with the militarization of South Lebanon under UNIFIL's nose? This is a million dollar question, and one that demands answers.