Lebanon Continues Fighting Fatah al Islam

Lebanese military casualties are approaching 100 soldiers killed in the six week fight with Fatah al Islam, and there's no sign of the fighting abating.

While the Lebanese military continues pounding Nahr Al Bared with artillery, Fatah al Islam has once again managed to fire off katuysha rockets at Lebanese positions.

Security sources said a Lebanese soldier died early on Saturday from wounds in Friday’s battles, raising the death of army soldiers over the past three days to 12, with more than 50 others wounded.

At least 100 soldiers, 70 militants and 44 civilians have been killed in fighting between the army and Islamist militants in the camp and other areas since May 20.

The military was concerned about being sucked into a war of attrition with Fatah Al Islam, who are well-trained, well-armed and have fought in Iraq.

A 1969 Arab agreement banned Lebanese security forces from entering Palestinian camps. The agreement was annulled by the Lebanese parliament in the mid-1980s, but the accord effectively stayed in place.

Fatah Al Islam’s guerrillas are primarily made up of Sunni Arabs. The resistance group announced its formation last November, shortly after two of its members were arrested by the Lebanese authorities.

The group is led by Shaker Abssi, a Palestinian wanted by Jordan and suspected of having links to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the late Jordanian leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Lebanon is in danger of being carved into pieces by various militias that have operated with impunity because the Lebanese government has failed to deal with them over the years. This includes Hizbullah and Fatah al Islam.

UPDATE:
France is hosting a meeting of various Lebanese factions, including Hizbullah in an attempt to deal with the deteriorating situation. Well, one way to deal with the situation is to realize that the problem has been exacerbated by the presence of Hizbullah and other armed militias that are nothing more than proxy forces for Syria or Iran and do not have Lebanon's best interests in mind.

UPDATE:
The fighting in and around the camp has reduced much of the area to rubble. The Lebanese military isn't bothering with precision strikes, but seems willing to destroy the entire area so as to eliminate the threat posed by Fatah al Islam. Had this kind of devastation been caused by Israel, the outcry would have been tremendous. Here? Not so much.

The media also seems to have taken little interest in the ongoing war in Lebanon, which is quite disturbing given that Fatah al Islam is linked with al Qaeda, but apparently stories about Paris Hilton's preferential treatment in jail scores higher with the powers that be than knowing the intent of the Islamists to impose Islamic law wherever they are around the world - and that such actions have nothing to do with Israel or the United States and everything to do with the outlook of those Islamists to impose their views over everyone else.