JUST OUTSIDE NAHR EL-BARED REFUGEE CAMP — Just at the edge of this now dev­as­tated refugee camp, the Lebanese Army is show­ing signs of prepar­ing for a show­down with the “Fatah al-Islam jihadist group”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2007/05/more_violence_and_an_update_on.php.
Trucks full of ammu­ni­tion have been seen rum­bling north on the road from Tripoli toward the camp. Many of the Pales­tin­ian refugees who are able to leave have left, leav­ing fewer civil­ian tar­gets to be hit — although the toll on that end is already crush­ingly high, too high for a peo­ple who have seen noth­ing but pain and hard­ship since 1948.
Since 4:30 p.m. Tues­day, an infor­mal truce has held between the mil­i­tants still holed up in the camp and the Lebanese army, but Fatah al-Islam has vowed to fight “until the last drop of blood” (usu­ally a sign that they’re get­ting close to the last drop) and the Lebanese Defense Min­is­ter Elias Murr told al-Arabiya tele­vi­sion: “Prepa­ra­tions are seri­ously under way to end the mat­ter. The army will not nego­ti­ate with a group of ter­ror­ists and crim­i­nals. Their fate is arrest, and if they resist the army, death.“
At the moment, it’s still quiet up here. But it’s unclear how long that will last.