DEBKAfile Reports: US to airlift ammunition and advanced weapons to Lebanese army in response to Beirut’s plea for aid against

US military sources report the first two of six cargo planes should arrive in two days. For five days, Lebanese tanks and artillery have been pounding Fatah al-Israel gunmen barricaded in the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared refugee camp without achieving a breakthrough. The fighting has escalated dangerously following the infiltration of pro-Syrian reinforcements to the camp.

They are led by members of the pro-Syrian Palestinian extremist Ahmed Jibril’s group, armed by Damascus and directed by Syrian military intelligence officers, who maintain a presence in North Lebanon.

The Bush administration decided to rearm the Lebanese troops with better weapons because if they fail to suppress the Islamist uprising in the northern camp, the unrest will spread. The south Lebanese Palestinian refugee camp of Ein Hilwa in the south is already getting restive, stirred up by the hundreds of extremists linked to al Qaeda who have settled in the camp.

The IDF’s northern command has placed Israeli units along the Lebanese and Syrians on the alert in case of a flare-up. Washington, Jerusalem and Beirut all believe Bashar Assad is pumping up war tensions to intimidate the UN Security Council which is due to vote Tuesday, May 29, on an international tribunal for suspects in the Hariri assassination.

Assad has announced he will not recognize the tribunal. UN investigator Serge Brammertz plans to issue international arrest warrants for putting some of his close family members and high intelligence officers, stalwarts of his regime, on trial for murder.

The upsurge of violence in the Nahr al Bared camp and two bombing attacks in Beirut this week are seen as the opening shots of the Damascus-instigated campaign of terror.

There are some indications that it could also ignite Israel’s northern borders.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report Syria is known to have trained terrorist teams to infiltrate Israel from Syria and Lebanon. The northern command is on the ready for artillery fire and the Israeli Air Force prepared for Syrian aircraft intrusions. The navy is braced for missile attacks on its vessels by Hizballah, which has just received a supply of C-802 shore-to-ship missiles from Syria, or even a ground incursion.

Jerusalem took careful note of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to Israel from Isfahan Thursday: The Zionist state will be uprooted, he said, if it attacks Lebanon again this summer