Lebanese Army Clashes With Islamist Militants; 70 Die

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Lebanon's soldiers clashed for a second day with Islamist militants in the northern city of Tripoli, as Lebanese officials accused neighboring Syria of sparking the bloodshed that may have killed 70 people.

Gunfights yesterday killed about 40 people, including 27 soldiers, the state-owned National News Agency said. As well as the soldiers and militants, another 30 people may have died yesterday and today inside the Nahr el-Bared camp, which houses about 30,000 Palestinian refugees and is at the center of the fighting, the agency reported.

Television footage on Arab and international channels showed plumes of smoke rising above Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city, as the army struck at militants from the Palestinian group Fatah Al-Islam. A two-hour cease-fire was brokered today by the International Committee of the Red Cross to evacuate the wounded and remove bodies, the state news agency said.

While all major political parties in Lebanon, including those allied with Syria, said they supported the Lebanese army and condemned Fatah Al-Islam, the violence may be an attempt by Syria to keep pressure on the Lebanese government, analysts and Lebanese government members said.

``This is another attempt to blackmail Lebanon,'' Marwan Hamadeh, Lebanese minister of telecommunications, said in a telephone interview today, accusing Syria of instigating and supporting the group. ``Lebanon will not submit to this kind of pressure.''

The Lebanese government was holding an emergency meeting today to discuss the crisis, the official news agency said.

Hariri Killing

The Lebanese, U.S., and French governments want an international tribunal set up to try Syrian officials who they say were behind a series of assassinations in Lebanon, including the 2005 car-bomb killing of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Hariri had been pressing for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the end of the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

The Syrian troops left Lebanon later in 2005. Since last summer's war between Israel and the Shiite Muslim militia group Hezbollah, Shiite and Christian political parties supported by Syria have pushed the Lebanese government to step down, saying it is too close to the U.S.

``The Syrians have a lot of interest in keeping pressure on Lebanon and taking advantage of the country's precarious situation,'' said Anne Giudicelli, a former French diplomat who founded and runs Paris-based Terrorisc, a risk consultancy company specializing in the Middle East. ``Obviously, it's hard to have proof.''

Human Shields

The fighting erupted after security forces raided a building in Tripoli to arrest suspects in a bank robbery, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported. Alleged members of Fatah Al-Islam then attacked army posts at Nahr el-Bared, the BBC said.

Hamadeh said the fighting was dragging on because the militants were using the camp's population as human shields.

``The innocent Palestinians inside the camp are hostages,'' Hamadeh said. ``Our biggest fear is if this issue spreads beyond the camp.''

In other violence, a 63-year-old woman died and 10 people were injured in a bombing yesterday at a shopping center car-park in a Christian district of Beirut in what police described as a terrorist attack, AFP said.

Fatah Al-Islam is an Islamic splinter group of the mainstream and secular Palestinian Fatah group. It has no more than few dozen members, said Alain Flandrois, deputy director general of GEOS, a Paris-based risk consultancy.

Al-Qaeda Allegiance

The group has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, though it's unclear whether it has any operational link to Osama bin Laden's international terrorist group, Flandrois said.

``Saying you are al-Qaeda has a certain publicity and political impact that helps put pressure on the government,'' Flandrois said. ``But these groups operate with a lot of autonomy. The Lebanese are more likely to see the hand of Syria rather than al-Qaeda.''

In a statement on its official Web site, Hezbollah condemned Fatah al-Islam's attack and praised the Lebanese army. The Hezbollah statement said that its allies, the fellow Shiite Amal group as well as the Free Patriotic Movement of Christian General Michel Aoun, also condemned the attack. Hezbollah, Amal and Aoun are allied with Syria, oppose the international tribunal, and are pressuring the Lebanese government to step down.

`Gang of Criminals'

The commander of the mainstream Fatah movement in Lebanon, Sultan Abu al-Aynayn, said Fatah Al-Islam is a ``gang of criminals'' and condemned it for attacking the Lebanese army, the Beirut-based Daily Star said.

Syria's official news agency made no mention of the events in Lebanon on its official Web site.

French defense minister Herve Morin said today that the fighting in Tripoli shows there is a ``permanent risk'' for the United Nations soldiers who are in the south of Lebanon maintaining a buffer between Hezbollah and Israel following their month-long war last summer.

Al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, in a video last September called on followers to attack all countries that supported the UN resolution that established the buffer zone, which is manned by soldiers from 28 countries, including France, Italy, French, Spain, and India.