Tensions still high in militant hunt

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon — In the grocery store where he works, Wassim al-Hagehussein had reason to be worried yesterday as Lebanese soldiers hunted down terrorist fugitives in this wretched Palestinian refugee camp.

Although Prime Minister Fuad Siniora declared an end to the 106-day siege of the Nahr al-Bared camp a day earlier, bullets whizzed past the store.

Then, a twitchy Lebanese soldier searching the dark and powerless aisles asked: “Are there any Palestinians in here?”

“No,” replied the store’s Lebanese owner, Rabieh al-Masri.

His lie probably saved Mr. al-Masri’s Palestinian friend and employee, Mr. al-Hagehussein, from arrest.

For 3½ months, this refugee camp just north of Tripoli has been under siege by Lebanese troops against Fatah al-Islam militants, a terrorist group that shares an ideology with al Qaeda.

The battle started May 20, when militants attacked Lebanese army units normally posted outside the camp, killing more than a dozen troops.

The army responded with a massive campaign of shelling and ground assaults that killed 163 soldiers, at least 131 militants and 42 civilians.

The camp, a warren of cinder-block buildings built up over almost 60 years, looked like piles of melted wedding cake yesterday. Shell blasts honeycombed nearly every building.

A last-ditch escape attempt by militants left their leader dead. Lebanese troops overran Fatah al-Islam positions and sent up a celebratory flare from the center of the camp.

In place since the 1948 creation of Israel forced thousands of Palestinian families to flee to Lebanon as refugees, the camp swelled to more than 30,000 people in less than a square mile.

An hour before the soldier stomped into the store, Mr. al-Masri and Mr. al-Hagehussein were chatting with Western reporters a few hundred yards from the camp’s entrance.

Mr. al-Masri rents the store from Mr. al-Hagehussein’s parents, some of the more well-off members of the Nahr al-Bared community.

Mr. al-Hagehussein, 30, has worked for Mr. al-Masri for seven years, and the two are close despite strained relations between the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

Under a tacit agreement, the Palestinians policed themselves and maintained large weapons stockpiles, mainly as symbols of resistance to Israel.

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