New Delhi: In Lebanon, the death toll in continued fighting between the army and Palestinian refugees has left more than 50 dead.
Among those dead are at least 22 soldiers and 17 militants. Scores of women and children are also among the casualties.
The Lebanese army has surrounded the Nahr-el-Bard camp in Tripoli housing 40,000 Palestinian refugees. Militants of the Fateh al-Islam are said to have taken shelter in the camp.
The Fateh al-Islam was formed last year by fighters who broke off from the Syrian-backed Fateh Uprising group.
Lebanon has struggled to defeat armed groups that control pockets of Lebanon – especially inside the country's 12 Palestinian refugee camps housing 350,000 people, which Lebanese authorities can't enter.
Some camps have become havens for Islamic militants accused of carrying out attacks in the country and of sending recruits to fight US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
Palestinian officials in the West Bank rushed to distance themselves from the Fatah Islam group and urged Palestinian refugees in the camp to isolate the militant group, which first set up in the northern Lebanese camp last fall after its leader was released from a Syrian jail.
Major Palestinian factions have dissociated themselves from the group. Lebanese Sunni political and religious leaders backed the army and the government.
Meanwhile, in Beirut on late Sunday, an explosion across the street from a busy shopping mall killed a 63-year-old woman and injured 12 other people in the Christian sector of the Lebanese capital.
Beirut and surrounding suburbs have seen a series of explosions in the last two years, many targeting Christian areas. Authorities blamed Fatah Islam for February 13 bombings of commuter buses that killed three people, but the group denied involvement.
Syria has denied involvement in any of the bombings, but Lebanon's national police commander Maj Gen Ashraf Rifi said Sunday that Damascus was using the Fatah Islam group as a covert way to wreak havoc in the country.
(With inputs from AP)
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