Heavy shelling pounds 'training' camp

Tripoli, Lebanon: Lebanese troops tightened a siege of a Palestinian refugee camp Monday, pounding the camp with artillery, as new signs emerged that the target of the attack, a shadowy militant group with suspected ties to Al Qaida, had become a refuge for militants planning attacks outside the country.

Lebanese officials said one of the men killed in Sunday's fighting was a suspect in a failed German train bombing - a new sign that the camp had become a refuge for militants planning attacks outside of Lebanon. In the past, others in the camp have said they are aiming to send trained fighters into Iraq.

The violence between the army and the Fatah Islam group in the northern port city of Tripoli and the adjacent Nahr Al Bared refugee camp has killed at least 27 soldiers and 20 militants, security officials said Monday.

Reports from the camp said up to 34 people had been killed, 14 of them civilians. But Lebanese security officials could not confirm that because the area is off limits to state authority.

Hundreds of troops, backed by tanks and armored carriers, surrounded the camp early Monday, as black smoke billowed into the air. The militants responded at daybreak by firing back with mortars.

The clashes between army troops surrounding the camp and Fatah Islam fighters began Sunday after a gun battle raged in a neighborhood in Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni city
known to have Islamic militants, witnesses said.

M-48 battle tanks unleashed their canon fire on the camp, sending orange flames followed by white plumes of smoke.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said on Sunday the fighting was a "dangerous attempt at hitting Lebanese security."