Calm returns to Lebanon camp

The Lebanese army and Islamist militants have declared an end to 33 days of fighting at a Palestinian refugee camp.

An uneasy calm settled over the Nahr al-Bared camp following the violence in which 172 people were killed.

Defence Minister Elias al-Murr declared victory over the Fatah al-Islam group, saying troops had seized all its positions and would besiege the camp until surviving militants surrender.

Fatah al-Islam, believed to have had a few hundred fighters when the battle began, relayed to Palestinian mediators its agreement to cease fire shortly after Mr Murr's announcement.

He said many of the group's leaders had been killed and remaining fighters had pulled back from the edges of Nahr al-Bared into civilian areas deep inside the camp.

He said the army would keep up its siege until all the militants gave themselves up, including their leader, Shaker al-Abssi.

"They have to surrender ... It's not good enough to say Abssi was killed. If he is dead, give us the body," Murr said.

The fighting had been focused on militant strongholds on the camp's outskirts. Security forces are barred from entering Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps by a 1969 Arab agreement.

At least 172 people, including 76 soldiers, 60 militants and 36 civilians and non-combatants, were killed in the fighting. Much of the camp, home to about 40,000 refugees, was destroyed.

The army says Fatah al-Islam started the conflict on May 20 by attacking its posts. The group, which includes fighters from across the Arab world, says it has been acting in self-defence.

Mr Murr said some of the fighters belonged to al-Qaeda. Fatah al-Islam's Abssi has said the group has no organisational ties to Osama bin Laden's network but shares its militant ideology.

Most of the camp's residents fled during the early days of the fighting to shelter in the nearby Beddawi refugee camp

The battle for Nahr al-Bared camp was Lebanon's worst outbreak of internal violence since its 1975-90 civil war.

© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.