Recently in Lebanon Category

BEIRUT -- An explosion has killed or injured at least four Spanish members of UNIFIL and wounded several others, although reports trickling in are contradictory and confusing. UNIFIL spokespeople are currently not answering phones -- or the lines are busy. (The linked article says four Spanish soldiers were killed and four others wounded, but other stories give differing accounts.)

UPDATE: LBC and AP now report five Spanish troops killed, three wounded. Two bodies were charred beyond immediate recognition.

The explosion could have been an IED or car-bomb, as some reports indicate, or it could have been an unexploded mine, which litter the south of Lebanon. Obviously, if it's a mine that's a completely different story than if they were attacked. Indeed, Reuters says it was a landmine that killed four and wounded six.

UPDATE: Reuters is now reporting an IED detonated by remote control. And I spoke with a source familiar with the unexploded ordnance in the Khiam area and the United Nations' mine clearing operations. The source said if it was a mine, it would have had to be an anti-tank mine, which aren't as common in Lebanon as anti-personnel mines and that the Khiam area has been previously cleared of unexploded mines leftover from the various wars that have hit south Lebanon over the years.

Initial thoughts: The Spanish were probably in a BMR-600 armored personnel carrier, as shown here. Perhaps some readers might be able to provide some insight on landmine vulnerability of the BMR-600?

Also, groups claiming to be or affiliated with al Qaeda have long made threats against UNIFIL, but none have been carried out so far (assuming the explosion is a landmine and not a planted IED or something.) UNIFIL is hampered by its lack of good intelligence on the ground and a clear authority to pursue counter-terrorism activities. As such, Brookings notes, UNIFIL is forced to rely on the Lebanese security regime, which is relatively weak and hamstrung by the political situation. The current contretemps up north with Fatah al-Islam, which has pledged to expand its campaign outside the camp of Nahr el-Bared, further complicate matters. Brookings believes the threat of a "catastrophic" attack against UNIFIL is real, but not imminent, but today's blast, assuming it was an attack and not a tragic accident, could be a probing movement to gauge UNFIL's response and an attempt to affect its military posture and morale. Also, don't forget the homefronts for the contributor countries: Spain and France might go wobbly with their troop contribution should minor attacks picking off peacekeepers a few at a time become more common.

But why Spain? Spain, with 1,100 troops has the third largest contribution, behind France and Italy, and has been one of the more aggressive of the UNIFIL contingents, taking an active role in weapons confiscation and closely monitoring Hezbollah in the region. This has led to tensions with some Shi'ite villages, that are largely sympathetic to Hezbollah. Earlier this year, angry residents of a village just north of UNIFIL's deployment mobbed a jeep full of Spanish soldiers because the villagers thought they were spying against Hezbollah. In December, according to the Christian Science Monitor, Hezbollah planted several bombs against one of the Spanish patrols, "which had discovered an abandoned Hizbullah position with stockpiled mortar shells and rockets."

The area was formerly used by Hizbullah to launch attacks into the Shebaa Farms, an Israeli-occupied mountainside claimed by Lebanon. The trip-wire detonated bombs, all constructed from Israeli-made components, were planted by "experts with a lot of technical experience," an internal UNIFIL report on the incident said. "This situation suggests a change in the threat that UNIFIL may have to face," the report said.

After the bombs were discovered, Hezbollah told UNIFIL it was a local commander who was acting on his own and that he would be reprimanded and the incident would not be repeated.

In February, however, the Israeli army dismantled five linked bombs on a border road, claiming they were planted by Hezbollah the weekend before. Hezbollah denied it, saying the bombs were from before the July war last year and UNIFIL said there was no way to tell when the bombs were planted.

But Hezbollah is not the only -- or even most likely -- party behind the bombing. In fact, my hunch is they are the least likely to have done this. More likely are jihadis who are operating in solidarity with Fatah al-Islam up north (there were persistent stories circulating that UNIFIL's naval contingent was taking part in the bombardment of Nahr el-Bared), genuine al Qaeda elements or wannabes who want to impress al Qaeda leadership in order to gain admission. There has been so far no claim of responsibility, and the list of possible bombers is a long one.

More as information becomes available.

BEIRUT -- A correction to my previous post below: Syria has not closed Masnaa, and it remains open. LBC was mistaken last night, as was I. My apologies.

All other land crossings remain closed until calm prevails in Nahr el-Bared, the Syrian foreign minister said, according to SANA.

BEIRUT -- Syria has announced that it is closing the two remaining land crossings into Lebanon as of midnight tonight, including the main Masnaa border crossing. According to LBC, Lebanese customs officials asked their Syrian counterparts at the border why, only to be told "it's a political decision." The crossing presumably will be closed indefinitely.

Masnaa is the busiest land crossing, sitting as it does on the road from Beirut to Damascus. It is one of Lebanon's main trade routes shipping its agricultural products to the rest of the Middle East and tonight's closures, following Syria's closure earlier this month of the northern border crossings because of the violence at Nahr el-Bared, leaves Lebanon with no land access to the outside world.

Syria has often used the border crossings to apply political pressure on Lebanon since the Feb. 14, 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

It could be a bit of a Syrian snit-fit in response to a delegation from the Arab League that is in town at the request of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority. The anti-Syrian bloc is demanding Arab states intervene with Syria to stop its interference in Lebanese affairs and Damascus' alleged weapons smuggling to various armed groups.

Syria is feeling the heat from the imposition of the International tribunal under Chapter 7 of the UN charter earlier this month, and this will put the Lebanon pressure cooker under more pressure.

BEIRUT -- This is a never-ending story.

The siege of Nahr el-Bared by thousands of Lebanese army troops has entered its third week now, and it may be metastasizing. Clashes broke out at the Ein el-Helweh camp south of Sidon yesterday between the Lebanese army and Jund al-Sham overnight and two soldiers were killed. Two militants were also killed.

The fighting erupted just hours after Abu Riyadh, who had previously belonged to Jund al-Sham, was killed in Nahr al-Bared.

Jund al-Sham is yet another Salafist/Islamist group that has found a haven in the squalid and miserable Palestinian camps in Lebanon, thanks in no small part because the Lebanese have let the Palestinians stew rather than integrate them into the greater society. This policy has created fetid breeding grounds for extremist ideologies in tune with al Qaeda's, ideologies which are in marked contrast to the more laid back and sophisticated Mediterranean outlook of most of Lebanon.

However, there is likely little coordination between the group responsible for yesterday's and this morning's clashes in the south and Fatah al-Islam up north in Nahr el-Bared. More likely, members of Jund al-Sham decided it was time to help their brothers in Islam and raised a ruckus. Shaker al-Absssi, the leader of Fatah al-Islam up north, even told a colleague of mine when she spoke with him this morning that there were no operational links between Fatah al-Islam and Jund al-Sham.

Another theory, popular in the government circles, is that yesterday's outburst in the south was yet another Syrian plot to sow chaos in Lebanon, although I have my doubts about that. While Syria is active here and Fatah al-Islam is without a doubt (in my mind) a Syrian asset, Jund al-Sham looks to be more independent. Not everything in Lebanon is made in Syria.

I don't think the incident in Ein el-Helweh will grow larger than it has. Already, other Palestinian groups have stepped in and, in effect, told the Jund al-Sham boys to sit down and shut up. The fighters reportedly turned over some of their positions to other Islamist groups in the camp.

Sorry for the lack of postings over the last three days. Yahoo!'s servers are crap, and I'm often having trouble getting into them. I hope to have this resolved soon. I'm also going to be making a major announcement regarding syndication in the coming days, hopefully.

Also, donations are working again, and covering this place ain’t cheap. Fixers, rented cars, hotel rooms, etc. all cost money and freelancing for newspapers only covers part of it. If you’d like me to keep blogging the developments in Lebanon’s latest crisis, please consider dropping some coin in the donate link below and to the right. Thanks.

BEIRUT -- The Lebanese army is on the move toward Nahr el-Bared. For the last three hours, the army has been pounding Fatah al-Islam positions with artillery, tanks and mortars. Some believe this is a softening up of position before a full-scale assault on the camp, which would break a 37-year-old precedent keeping Lebanese troops out of the Palestinian camps.

Or it might be another one of the exchanges of fire that have peppered the almost two week stand-off. Although this one looks pretty big.

BEIRUT -- Well, the situation up north has settled into a standoff, despite a bout of gunfire on Monday. The various Palestinian factions are trying to negotiate an end to this crisis, and the Lebanese government has given them time to get the job done. But while several politicians, such as Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, have said the military option is off the table, we may very well see more violence before this is over. Lebanon simply can't allow these guys to walk away, as I've mentioned before.

The group continues to refuse to hand over any of its fighters. "This is impossible," said Fatah al-Islam spokesman Abu Salim Taha via telephone from inside Nahr el-Bared.

I'll be heading back up, probably Tuesday, to monitor the situation. In the meantime, here are some of the stories I filed over the last week:

• Lebanon, Syria Point Fingers in Recent Violence (Washington Times)
• Lebanese army assault cheered, but raises fears (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Bodies piling up in assault on camp (San Francisco Chronicle)

Another one on the foreign fighters in Fatah al-Islam is due out tomorrow morning.

UPDATE 5/30/07 2:13:53 AM: And here it is! Sorry for the delay. Been busy here taking care of daily life that got put on hold while the North caught fire. Right now, things are more or less quiet, with the occasional exchange of fire. We'll see how long it holds.

BEIRUT -- In my previous post, I mentioned that Maj. Gen Ashraf Rifi, the head of the Internal Security Forces told me, he "thinks the army will have to go in" to Nahr el-Bared to uproot the militants of Fatah al-Islam.

"They are very dangerous," he told me in his plush office. "We have no choice, we have to combat them."

Perhaps I underplayed his comments, because if he's right, "going in" would be a huge development. The Palestinians have run their own security in the 12 camps under a 1969 agreement brokered by the Arab League. Now, that agreement was allegedly revoked in 1987 by the Lebanese Parliament, but there's still at least a tacit agreement that the Palestinians mind their own store.

That's not really a viable security option anymore, as we can see just north of Tripoli.

Now, what was Rifi trying to say? Was he merely repeating the phrase of my question -- "Will the army have to go in?" -- because his english isn't so good, as he protested a couple of times? (He spoke well enough to conduct an interview, mind you.) Was he trying to emphasize the point that there are elements in the government that are rarin' to go get those Fatah al-Islam guys while others, perhaps Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, are willing to take a slower approach?

Or was he trying, in his own locution, to emphasize the importance for Lebanon of winning this battle? Because this is make or break time for Lebanon as a sovereign state.

If the army fails at this task of defeating Fatah al-Islam -- and I'm not talking about some mealy-mouthed "arrangement" where a few of the militants are hauled in -- it will undermine the legitimacy of the army as a state institution. And that will very much play right into Hezbollah's hands.

See, Hezbollah has often said it is needed as an armed resistance because the army is too weak to stand up to Israel. (True.) But the Shi'ite group won't put itself under the command of the army because to do so would mean that any attack it launched on Israel such as, say, capturing and killing Israeli troops, would mean Lebanon was the aggressor and as such would bring down the wrath of the Israeli military on Lebanon.

Of course, this is exactly what happened last summer, but let's not quibble. In Lebanese politics, there are apparently no limits on hypocrisy.

If the army fails and is seen as weak or illegitimate, Hezbollah has a strong argument for saying it must keep its arms for the defense of Lebanon. Now, one of the definitions of sovereignty is the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, or violence. Since Lebanon's government and weak army would be unable to claim that following a loss at the hands of Fatah al-Islam, there would be no real sovereignty here. Hezbollah 1, Lebanon 0.

One can argue whether a sovereign Lebanon is a good or bad thing in the grand scheme of things, an argument I can't address on this humble blog, although I favor the former. But it's vitally important to the Lebanese government.

It's so important that some elements of the government, including Rifi's former boss, cabinet member Ahmad Fatfat, are calling for storming the gates of Nahr el-Bared.

There is some buzz that this will be resolved in 48 hours. That may be true, or it might not be. A lot can happen in this small country in that time.

By the way, the donations are working again, and covering this place ain't cheap. Fixers, rented cars, hotel rooms, etc. all cost money and freelancing for newspapers only covers part of it. If you'd like me to keep blogging the developments in Lebanon's latest crisis, please consider dropping some coin in the donate link below and to the right. Thanks.

BEIRUT -- Lebanon is truly a strange -- yet tasty -- place. Two hours ago, I had Lebanese soldiers pointing guns at me over a traffic snafu (my driving or theirs, I'm not sure which and I'll bet neither do they) and now I'm at Julia's enjoying a righteous grilled chicken salad with a subtle basil vinaigrette.

But I wonder if my predictions of a looming showdown were premature. It's true that hundreds of Lebanese troops are ringing the Palestinian camp of Nahr el-Bared, where "hundreds" of Fatah al-Islam fighters are holed up -- along with about 18,000 Palestinian civilians. And also it's true that the U.S. and other Arab countries have sped up the delivery of military aid to Lebanon: more ammo, night vision goggles and the like. And it's true that Defense Minister Elias Murr has said that death or surrender are the only options for the fighters. Furthermore, the chief of the Internal Security Forces, Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi told me not 30 minutes ago that he thought the army would have to go in.

But that rascally sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has thrown a spanner in the works, it seems. Yesterday was Liberation Day, a national holiday commemorating the retreat of the Israelis from southern Lebanon in 2000. Nasrallah took the opportunity to warn against going into the camps, saying an assault by the army was "a red line" and that the opposition wanted no part of it.

"The Nahr al-Bared camp and Palestinian civilians are a red line," Nasrallah said, according to Al-Nahar. "We will not accept or provide cover or be partners in this."

"Does it concern us that we start a conflict with Al Qaeda in Lebanon and consequently attract members and fighters of Al Qaeda from all over the world to Lebanon to conduct their battle with the Lebanese army and the rest of the Lebanese?" he added.

Fair enough, I guess. But more to the point, his address and his opposition to a military solution will reverberate throughout the army, about half of which is Shi'a. A sharp producer I know up north painted an alternate scenario than the al-Götterdämmerung scenario presently being awaited.

Nasrallah's address stopped the state in its tracks, said the producer, because of his influence among Shi'a. Going into the camp now, with half the army Shi'a, risks splitting the army while at the same time risking a general uprising among the 350,000 to 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon. Without a unified army, there can be no unified Lebanon. The remnants of the military would collapse into militias. And that's the end of the ball game. Civil War 2.0. Talk about an ’80s revival! (Only without the music, hair or Molly Ringwald.)

What's more likely, he said, is that in the coming days or, more likely, weeks, a number of Fatah al-Islam members will be "caught" trying to "escape" the camp. The Army will announce it has caught the "criminals" who started this whole thing with their attack on army positions last weekend. Shaker al-Abssi, the leader of Fatah al-Islam, will evade capture.

And the rest? Well, it will turn out that Fatah al-Islam wasn't quite as big an organization as people thought it was.

The army would look like it accomplished something, massive bloodshed would be avoided (a good thing) and, like most issues in Lebanon, this whole ugly episode would be suspended but not resolved.

Does it solve the problem? No, but looking the other way and seeing what they want to is a Lebanese tradition.

Time will tell if the producer or the doomsayers are right.

By the way, the donations are working again, and covering this place ain't cheap. Fixers, rented cars, hotel rooms, etc. all cost money and freelancing for newspapers only covers part of it. If you'd like me to keep blogging the developments in Lebanon's latest crisis, please consider dropping some coin in the donate link below and to the right. Thanks.

TRIPOLI -- What the heck is going on up here? That seems to be the big question at the moment. Last night around 9 p.m., fighting started up again between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam. This prompted speculation that the push against the jihadi group had come, and I raced back up to Tripoli from my spot of being stuck in a checkpoint just outside Beirut. (The capital is locked down after three bombs this week, so security is tight.)

Atop the building where the television crews have set up, the owner of the building -- a tightly wound guy in the best of times -- carried around a Kalashnikov and threatened to shoot anyone who turned on their television lights.

In the darkness, you couldn't see who was who, and a rumor -- goosed, apparently by Lebanese military intelligence -- swept through the gang that Fatah al-Islam had sent suicide bombers throughout the nearby area and one might be on the roof. A quick evacuation ensued.

This morning it's quiet again. The fighting stopped around 6 a.m., and we're back to waiting for something to happen.

My feeling is that Fuad Siniora's government is a bit confused, as the Palestinian issue is a tricky one. The status of Palestinians in Lebanon is not a purely internal affair, but one belonging to the Arab League thanks to a 1969 agreement that keeps Lebanese authority out of the 12 camps scattered around the country. Further complicating matters, the camp isn't empty. There has been a more or less steady trickle of refugees getting out of the camps, either on foot or in cars, but there are still about 18,000 civilians in the camp, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The humanitarian situation is growing worse by the hour inside the camp, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and scattered demonstrations in other camps have already occurred. More casualties among civilians is going to inflame the Palestinians in Lebanon -- an already seething people who make up about 10 percent of Lebanon's population. Sultan Abu Aynan, the head of Lebanon's branch of Fatah -- the main group in the PLO -- has warned of a general uprising among the Palestinians could occur. Other Arab governments have also expressed concern over the casualties (even while they pledge a rush shipment of weapons to the Lebanese army.)

So a long siege is untenable to the Palestinians and Arab governments around the region. But leaving Fatah al-Islam alone is equally untenable to the Lebanese government. Going into the camp, no mater how carefully, will result in horrific casualties among both the Palestinians and the Lebanese army, perhaps the only state institution almost widely admired by all of Lebanon's quarreling confessional groups. Further complicating matters, members of the opposition, led by the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, camped out in downtown since Dec. 1, have started making political hay out of this situation by accusing the U.S.-backed government of incompetence and dithering -- charges which aren't entirely untrue.

I mention the various backers because solving the problem of Fatah al-Islam has implications far beyond the borders of Lebanon. While mass casualties on the army's side would be bad, in Lebanon, the fear of the "other" overrides all. It's highly unlikely Siniora's political allies in the Christian and Druze camps would desert him no matter how bad a military assault might be.

(On a side note, Saad Hariri, the son of the slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, urged his supporters -- of which there are many in this conservative Sunni area -- to help the army. Allegedly, some have taken that to heart because I've heard stories from Palestinians who say Future Movement followers are shooting into the camp at anything that moves. How do they know the bullets are from Future Movement supporters? Who knows, but the truth is almost irrelevant in this case; the suspicions indicate the depth of distrust between Palestinians and local residents up here.)

So while army casualties would be bad, large numbers of dead among the Palestinians would be worse. Arab governments in the region such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the various Gulf sheikhdoms would be seen by their own restive populations as helping a government massacre Palestinians -- and it would be an Arab government doing it. Talk about betrayal! (Al Jazeera, by far the most popular news channel throughout the Middle East, is allegedly pushing this narrative, although I can't verify this just yet.) So Cairo, Amman and others are watching this situation very closely.

This would be bad for Siniora because he relies not only on support from the West, but from friendly Arab governments who want to check the Iranian-Syrian axis. Weakening Siniora means strengthening Hezbollah in Lebanon's zero-sum politics, which would further strengthening Syria, right when it's facing a possible United Nations Security Council resolution that would set up the Hariri tribunal under Chapter 7.

The common thread in all of this is Syria. Fatah al-Islam is suspected of being a Syrian marionette and Hezbollah is a Syrian ally. With threats from the north, south and east, the little prime-minister-that-could is rapidly running out of room to maneuver.

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.

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.

NAHR EL-BARED, Lebanon -- Ali Said Mearbani, 64, mopped his brow and gratefully accepted a cool glass of water offered to him by a worker in the cafe. Mearbani had more reasons to be thankful, though. He had just escaped Lebanon's latest war zone.

Mearbani lives in the village of Ard al Hamra, which borders Nahr el-Bared, the teeming Palestinian camp that for the last three days has been brutalized by a volley of tank shells, 155mm mortar rounds and machine gun fire from the Lebanese Army, which is in a fierce battle with Fatah al-Islam, a radical jihadist group.

Early Sunday morning, his four-story home was invaded by the jihadis, who forced him, his wife, his three daughters and his daughter-in-law into the basement before taking up sniper positions on his roof.

"They told us, 'We won't leave unless we're dead,'" said Mearbani as he juggled cell phone calls from concerned relatives.

Three of the four were foreign, he said, saying he could tell from their accents that one was from Saudi Arabia, one was from Yemen and one was Sudanese. He said he couldn't tell where the fourth was from.

Finally, after a terrifying night with his children huddled around him while shells fell around them, the women in the family -- his wife and his daughter-in-law -- went up to beg the Fatah al-Islam militants to leave them in peace.

They refused and soon the Lebanese Army was shelling his home. He only escaped because he had a friend in the Lebanese Army and was able to tell him where they were and what checkpoint he was near. The friend, a sergeant, told him to wear a white T-shirt so the Army would know he meant no harm. He did, and the Army spirited him out to safety.

Lebanese and not a Palestinian, he praised the Army for firing on every sniper position Fatah al-Islam had taken up.

"Even when they were hiding in a mosque," he said, "the army shot at the mosque."

Walking out of his home and through his village, he said he passed at least 10 dead bodies. "They were not from the camp, so I assume they were terrorists."

Such scenes will be increasingly common when Lebanon's latest violence eventually winds down. By the end of the day Tuesday, the death toll stood at about 67 people and thousands of refugees were streaming from the camp waving anything colored white.

At least 30 Lebanese Army soldiers, 18 militants and 19 civilians have been killed since Sunday in the worst violence to hit Lebanon since the end of its 1975-90 civil war, according to Army and Palestinian sources.

One civil defense worker in charge of collecting bodies, who gave his name only as Mazen, said there were "lots of bodies" just inside the north entrance to the camp where Fatah al-Islam, a radical jihadist group with an al Qaeda-inspired ideology and possible ties to Syria, was holding out against hundreds of Lebanese troops. He didn't know, however, if they were fighters or civilians.

For the past three days, Fatah al-Islam's positions have been hammered by 155mm mortars, tank blasts and 50-caliber machine gun fire from the army, but so far they seem to be holding fast.

As the worker moved to collect more bodies, Lebanese troops rolled up to the secured entrance to the cheers of dozens of young men from the the surrounding area. Atop their armored personnel carriers, the soldiers grinned and flashed victory signs.

Khoder Taleb, 36, the regional manager for the civil defense forces, said Fatah al-Islam had "hundreds" of fighters and that many were foreign. He said that two bodies around the corner, near the checkpoint and which reporters were not allowed to see, were burned because of an explosion, but their identity papers on them said they were Bangladeshis. There was no way to confirm this.

Another civil defense worker showed this reporter a photo of one of the bodies on his cell phone he said he had snapped and offered to take the reporter's phone to snap more photos of the bodies. Taleb prevented him from doing so, however.

Around mid-day, a United Nations convoy entered Nahr el-Bared loaded with food, water, medicine and even generators for the camp, which has been cut off from most supplies since the fighting started on Sunday. Taleb al Salhani, a security officer for the convoy, said he was waiting for a cease-fire to be put in place before he would send his trucks in.

It was in vain, however, as when a truce appeared to be in place by late afternoon, his convoy was attacked while it was in the camp unloading its good. Robin Cook, Lebanon director for the UNRWA, said seven trucks went in, but three were disabled and were abandoned in the camp.

The Palestinians aren't much liked by the Lebanese, who often blame them for starting the civil war in 1975. Palestinians, in turn, aren't too fond of the Lebanese who host them because Beirut won't grant them citizenship or allow them to work in almost 70 professions, consigning most of the 350,000 refugees to poverty.

Tuesday's fighting continued intermittently throughout the day, with a long truce starting at about 4:30 and apparently holding so far through the night. Up to 10,000 panicked and miserable Palestinians have taken this opportunity to flee to another nearby refugee camp, Beddawi, also near Tripoli. Many hung white sheets from their vehicles or held white plastic bags out the windows. So desperate to escape that many were driving on flat tires.

By all accounts, they're fleeing what many Palestinians call a massacre.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 people are wedged into a tiny area, barely a few square miles in size. Fatah al-Islam has taken over buildings in the area and in surrounding hamlets, often without fully ejecting the families living there. The Lebanese Army, in turn, is shelling those buildings, and often reducing them to rubble.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has said that dozens of buildings have been destroyed with the residents inside. The total number of casualties has so far been impossible to determine, however, as the Lebanese Red Cross has not been inside the camp yet. Joseph Boutrous, the North District chief of logistics for the LRC, said his men had managed to get to hospitals 17 wounded civilians on Monday and 10 wounded by mid-day Tuesday.

"We have 15 cars waiting to go in if we get a cease fire," he said, surrounded by eager men ready to go in.

Later that day, a tentative truce took hold and his men took off. There is as yet no confirmation on the number of civilians wounded or killed.

Here's the story I filed for the San Francisco Chronicle last night,giving you a sense of the scene up around the Nahr el-Bared camp. It's grim:

Across the street, black smog billowed over the camp while half a dozen buildings blazed. Sniper fire crackled in the air as the army pounded the camp with 120mm mortar and tank shells. Fatah al-Islam militants responded with rocket propelled grenade launchers and machine-gun fire.

Dense orange groves surrounding the camp were scorched from explosions while the army seemed to methodically lob shells on a specific sector of the camp, setting a number of buildings on fire before moving on.

Conditions in the camp -- a miserable warren of alleyways and cinderblock homes housing between 30,000 and 40,000 people -- are grim. A source at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in New York said it was impossible for camp medical workers to get to the dead and wounded. Water and electricty have been cut off and about 50 foreigners -- many of the Westerners -- are hunkered down as their embassies work to get a cease fire in place so they can be evacuated.

I'm heading up in a couple of hours. Word is a UN convoy is going to try to get into the camp.

BEIRUT -- Jesus. Another car bomb just went off a few minutes ago in upscale Verdun, an upscale Muslim neighborhood full of tony shops. I can't tell yet, but there appear to be much more damage and casualties than last night's car bomb in Achrafiyeh. The cars are still burning as I type. The neighborhood is in chaos as soldiers and rescue workers try to keep order and reach the wounded amid the flames. Updates as I can get them.

UPDATE 1: Future TV, affiliated with the Hariri family, says four people have been injured in the bomb.

I'd also like to write a little history on Fatah al-Islam. As the Lebanese Army fights a pitched battle with the Palestinian militant group, the question for many in Beirut -- especially those who support the current government -- is what role Syria may be playing in the current drama to the north. 

The timing, according to some political observers, is telling coming as it does on the heels of the introduction of a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council to set up an international tribunal that would try suspects in the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. Syria, which opposes the tribunal, could have pulled the strings on Fatah al-Islam, a group that government supporters say heeds its masters in Damascus.

National police commander Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi said yesterday that Damascus was behind Fatah al-Islam's recent surge, with only a bit of al Qaeda ideology thrown in. 

"Perhaps there are some deluded people among them but they are not al Qaida," Rifi said. "This is imitation al Qaida, a 'Made in Syria' one."

Muhammad Shatah, a senior advisor to Prime Minister Fuad Siniora -- whose government is locked in a power struggle with opposition groups that support Syria -- also said Syria was trying to derail the tribunal, which is widely expected in to implicate senior Syrian officials in the Hariri killing, by sowing discord in Lebanon. The widely held belief among government members is that the leader of Fatah al-Islam, Shaker al-Abssi, is a member of the Syrian mukhabarrat and was sent here last year to stir up trouble after making a deal for an early release from a Syrian prison. 

But one longtime observer of the Palestinian camps and Islamist movements doesn't see Syria's direct involvement. Kassem Kassir, a journalist for the pro-government newspaper al Mustaqbal who is an expert on these groups and has interviewed members of the group in Nahr el-Bared, said Fatah al-Islam, and its leader Shaker al-Abssi are supported by Salafist groups in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan that share al Qaida's ideology more than they are by Syria. Al-Abssi's link to Syria comes from the long history of attempts by Syria to use the Palestinians for its own purposes against Israel. 

Al Abssi used to be a member of the main Palestinian faction, Fatah, founded by former PLO chairman Yassir Arafat. He later joined Fatah al-Intifada, a fake group set up by Syria in an attempt to turn Palestinians' national yearnings to Syria's advantage. But with little support among the Palestinian population, which by and large stayed loyal to homegrown groups such as Fatah and Hamas, Fatah al-Intifada languished. Last year, in a bid to strike out on his own, Kassir said, Al Abssi split and formed Fatah al-Islam. 

It was possibly a natural split, he said, because Al Abssi is a Jordanian of Palestinian descent with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was killed last year. Today he gets money and men from Salafist groups in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan who share his jihadist view of an Islamic caliphate stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. 

Kassir acknowledged that Fatah al-Islam appears to be very well armed and those weapons had to have come through Syria at some point, indicating some degree of cooperation, but Syria often allows groups other than its main ally Hezbollah to arm up. 

Hezbollah has constraints on what it can do, given its image as a Lebanese resistance with members of parliament, said Reva Bhalla, director of geopolitical analysis at Stratfor, a Houston-based security firm. It is reluctant to turn its guns on the government, given that it's part of it and it still hope to be seen as a legitimate part of the Lebanese political process. Groups such as Fatah al-Islam have more flexibility. 

"Syria is funneling weapons and men to them, keeping them there (in Lebanon) and they're a bargaining tactic against the United States," which is currently talking with Syria's main ally, Iran, over a possible détente in the Middle East, she said. Significantly, she added, Iran has signaled that it doesn't oppose the Hariri tribunal, which is making Syria very nervous that its main ally might be hanging it out to dry. 

"Syria is watching very closely that it doesn't get screwed in any deal," and any support it may be giving to groups such as Fatah al-Islam is to remind the United States that it has chips it can still play.     

Regardless of how the battle with Fatah al-Islam plays out, there are other groups that Syria has more direct ties with, Kassir said, such as Jund al-Sham (Army of the Sham) and Osbat al-Ansar (the League of Partisans), which are based in other Palestinian camps in Lebanon. They all share a similar ideology and all benefit from Syria's looking the other way as materiel crosses the border coming from and heading to Iraq. 

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," he said. 

BEIRUT -- Lebanon was rocked by violence today with dozens killed in fighting in the country's north and a car bomb in a predominantly Christian neighborhood of Beirut that killed one person and wounded up to a dozen.

The day started with clashes in the northern city of Tripoli between the Lebanese Army and the Palestinian militant group, Fatah al-Islam, which the Lebanese government says is backed by Syria and shares an ideology with al Qaida. At least 22 soldiers and 17 militants were killed in fighting that lasted through much of the day.

But by the time calm had been imposed up north, a car bomb shattered windows and collapsed a building in the east Beirut neighborhood of Acrafiyeh. Reports say a woman was killed and about a dozen wounded.

The bomb was placed in a car lot next to the popular ABC Achrafiyeh mall, and the timing of the blast -- at 11:40 p.m. -- suggested that its intent was to cause panic and fear among the crowd exiting the movie theaters at the mall.

"It was just to scare people," said a man in the car lot who declined to be identified. "If they really wanted to cause damage, they would have put it in the parking garage."

The bomb left a crater about 4 feet deep and 9 feet wide, and police said the explosives were estimated to weigh 22 pounds. The blast -- heard across the city -- gutted cars, set vehicles ablaze and shattered store and apartment windows.

Hamid and Claudine Saliba, both 39, live across the street from the parking lot where the car exploded.

"In Lebanon, you expect anything," said Claudine, and after today's violence up north, she and her husband were on guard. "But not in Achrafiyeh!"

They spoke from Hamid's mother's home, which is two doors down from their own, and the devastation in the house was near total. Graceful Ottoman windows jambs were ripped from the walls and heavy doors torn from their hinges. Luckily for Hamid, his mother had left the house on vacation two days previously, so there were no injuries.

This is the latest in a string of car bombs that many in Lebanon suspect is aimed at destabilizing the country so that Syria can re-impose its hegemony it enjoyed for 29 years.

Initially welcomed as protectors during Lebanon's 15-year-long civil war, Syrian maintained an iron control over Lebanon after the war ended, effectively occupying it from 1990-2005, when it withdrew its troops. The withdrawal was forced upon Damascus following massive popular protests, which the Lebanese call the "independence uprising," in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many in Lebanon blame Syria for that killing and the waves of violence that have followed.

Lebanon has been on a knife's edge since December of last year when Hezbollah and its allies, who support Syria, pulled out of the government in protest over legislation forming an international tribunal that would handle the Hariri case. Syria and its supporters vehemently oppose the tribunal, forcing the Lebanese government to petition the United Nations to impose the tribunal under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, meaning it does not require Lebanese parliamentary approval. The tribunal is widely expected to indict high-level members of the Syrian regime, including the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Tonight's bombing -- which may or may not be tied to the fighting in the north -- could be seen as a message that Syria's agents in Lebanon are prepared to unleash more violence if the tribunal is imposed on Lebanon.