Middle East News

Gun battle erupts in Palestinian camp in south Lebanon (Roundup)

Sep 15, 2008, 22:51 GMT

Beirut - Fierce clashes erupted Monday between rival Palestinian factions in a refugee camp in south Lebanon with one person reported slain, Lebanese and Palestinian sources said. The clashes erupted between the mainstream Fatah movement and members of a fundamentalist group called Jund al-Sham, the sources said. A Jund al-Sham member was killed in the clashes, the sources said. The militants exchanged machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, and camp inhabitants were seen fleeing in the streets. Jund al-Sham has in the past clashed with Fatah inside the camp, which is the largest of Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps and is a hotbed of Islamic extremists. Jund al Sham, believed to have first appeared in 1999 in Afghanistan, was established by Syrians and Palestinians with links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who founded al-Qaeda in Iraq and was subsequently killed by a US airstrike.

Middle East News

Gun battle erupts in Palestinian camp in south Lebanon (Roundup)

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