End sought to Lebanon standoff

TRIPOLI, Lebanon – Palestinian mediators pressed for a negotiated solution to a weeklong siege of a Palestinian refugee camp Sunday, with the Lebanese government demanding the surrender of Islamic militants inside but reluctant to rush into an all-out assault.

The leader of the Fatah Islam militants said his fighters would not surrender.

“We wish to die for the sake of God,” Shaker Youssef al-Absi said in a video shown on Al-Jazeera television on Saturday. “Sunni people are the spearhead against the Zionist Americans.”

Al-Absi, a Palestinian, has said he is inspired by Osama bin Laden and has been linked to al-Qaida in Iraq. Mainstream Palestinian factions have distanced themselves from him.

The Lebanese government was in a bind over its campaign to uproot Fatah Islam militants barricaded inside the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp. An attack to crush the fighters could be bloody – for both troops and the thousands of Palestinian civilians still trapped inside.

It would also risk deepening Lebanon’s political divisions. Hezbollah, the most powerful opposition movement, has warned the military against attacking and if the assault goes badly, it could boost the Islamic militant group’s campaign to oust Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. The military demands the fighters be handed over for prosecution for attacking Lebanese troops last week.

Despite sporadic exchanges of gunfire, a fragile truce has held at the camp in northern Lebanon for five days, with hundreds of Lebanese troops surrounding the camp and building up their forces – with U.S. military help – to prepare for an attack.

The truce followed three days of heavy fighting at the camp in which 20 civilians, 30 Lebanese soldiers and up to 60 militants were killed.