Lebanese Military Has No Deadline

Time Not an Issue In Siege of Camp, Commander Says

TRIPOLI, Lebanon, June 5 -- The Lebanese army has told the government that it has set no deadline for decisive action to end a nearly three-week-old campaign against al-Qaeda-styled militants taking cover in a Palestinian refugee camp, officials said Tuesday.

The remarks in a cabinet session Monday by Gen. Michel Suleiman, commander of the Lebanese army, suggested that expectations of a climactic push by the military into the camp may prove unfounded. Clashes erupted May 20, and since then, the army has besieged Nahr al-Bared, a warren of cinder-block buildings and narrow alleys where an estimated 250 fighters of Fatah al-Islam have holed up.

"Our chronometer is off, time is irrelevant to us. This operation will go for as long as it has to go," a military spokesman said Tuesday on customary condition of anonymity. "We don't care about the time."

Volleys of gunfire and the occasional crack of tank and artillery shells reverberated across the camp again Tuesday. It was the fifth day of fighting since a tenuous truce collapsed, although its intensity, as on Monday, was less than in earlier days. Building after building in the camp -- less than one square mile along the Mediterranean Sea -- bear scars of the fighting, many of them collapsed, cratered or chiseled by gunfire.

Officials of the mainstream Palestinian Fatah faction said several fighters of Fatah al-Islam had surrendered their weapons Tuesday inside the camp and returned home. The group draws its fighters from Lebanon and across the Arab world. Col. Khaled Aref, Fatah's representative in the Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon, said those surrendering were all Palestinian.

The clashes have killed 45 soldiers, at least 20 civilians and perhaps 60 militants, although exact figures are difficult to come by given the lack of access to the camp in recent days. Relief officials say anywhere from 3,000 to 8,000 Palestinian residents are still trapped in Nahr al-Bared, many of them running short on food, water and fuel.

"We can't reach people and we can't gain access to where the wounded are," said Igor Ramazzotti, a delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross. "There's a lot of rubble in the street. That's made it almost impossible to drive into the camp."

So far, people across Lebanon's normally bitterly divided political spectrum have given at least tacit support to the army's operation. But while many analysts understand the army's reluctance to risk more soldiers fighting in dense quarters, some have expressed concern that the consensus could break over time. Others have suggested the army runs the risk of bolstering the appeal of the fighters among radical elements as they hold out under the barrage.

Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general and analyst, speculated that the army, long ill-equipped, faced a window of 10 days to bring the clashes to an end.

"It is not advisable to routinize the situation. It's going to be a war of attrition, and you can't hold the army alert for a long period of time," he said. "You can't let a long period of time pass where you have more political complications that can hinder you."

Along the tattered highway outside Nahr al-Bared, where Lebanese residents appeared fervent in their support of the army's actions, young men milling near military positions tried to outdo each other in their prescriptions for what should follow.

"God willing, they'll drive them all into the sea," said Mohammed Taleb, a 37-year-old resident, pointing toward the Mediterranean.

"Like they massacred the army, I want to see the army massacre them," added his friend, 21-year-old Moussa Youssef, sitting across from him. As for the thousands of civilians still in the camp, he added, "The innocent have already left."

Ibrahim reported from Beirut.