maybe the Lebanese Army needs pointers from Hamas

It has been five weeks, and as hard as it is to believe, the Lebanese Army has still not managed to route out Fatah Islam from a refugee camp with fixed stable boundaries. Taken from the Globe and Mail report.

BEIRUT — Fierce fighting erupted in and around a besieged Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Monday as Lebanese troops resumed bombardment of al-Qaeda-inspired militants barricaded inside.

Troops, backed by heavy artillery and tank fire, blasted suspected hideouts of the Fatah Islam militants inside the Nahr el-Bared camp on the outskirts of the northern port city of Tripoli, as the battle against the militants entered its fifth week, witnesses said.

The intense bombardment sent thick black and white smoke billowing into the air and started fires in several shell-punctured buildings in the camp.In Sunday's clashes, troops entirely destroyed the militants' main headquarters located on the edge of the camp, according to the state-run National News Agency. But the whereabouts of Fatah Islam leader Shaker Youssef al-Absi and his top aides remain unknown.

After inspecting troops deployed around the Nahr el-Bared camp, Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman said Sunday that the decision to eliminate the Fatah Islam militants was “final and irreversible.”“There is no other way out for these terrorists except to lay down their arms and surrender to justice before it is too late,” Gen. Suleiman said in a statement carried by the NNA.

I am not sure why Gen. Suleiman is so cocky considering Lebanese soldiers continue to fall at a great rate than Fatah Islam militants.