Deadly battle rages in Lebanon

Lebanese troops and Islamist militants fought renewed battles around a Palestinian refugee camp on Monday, a day after 57 people were killed there and in nearby Tripoli, security sources said.

Tank shells crashed into the coastal camp, home to some 40,000 refugees, raising plumes of smoke, as fighters of the al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam group fired grenades and machineguns at army posts on the camp perimeter, witnesses said.

At least eight civilians were killed and 20 wounded on Monday, Palestinian sources inside the camp said. They said the toll was certain to rise as some areas of the camp could not be reached by rescue workers.

At least 27 soldiers, 15 militants and 15 civilians died in Sunday's violence, the worst internal fighting since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

The Lebanese media are in no doubt that Syria is to blame for clashes between security forces and Fatah al-Islam militants.

They also say the clashes are linked to the looming date of a UN resolution on an international tribunal to investigate the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri.

Some Egyptian papers link the violence to the Palestinian issue.

Fatah al-Islam is believed to have between 150 and 200 armed men, all in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp north of Tripoli.

Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are often a haven for armed groups. Lebanese security forces do not enter the camps, only guarding their perimeters.

The Lebanese government has linked Fatah al-Islam to the Syrian intelligence services. Syrian officials and Fatah al-Islam deny the connection.

The new outbreak of violence in Lebanon reminds again that the Palestinian problem is the real problem of the Middle East, at the origin of all the other ones.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon. They started arriving in 1948, when they lost their territories due to the creation of the State of Israel, and mainly in 1967, when Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza.