GO’s secret weapon

BEIRUT (AFP) - At least 78 people have been killed in fierce fighting between the army and Islamic extremists in northern Lebanon, Lebanese army and Palestinian sources said on Friday.

It is the deadliest internal strife since the 1975-90 civil war.

"Army soldiers have died from wounds, so now the toll is 33 martyrs," an army spokesman said on Friday.

Twenty-five militants from the Fatah al-Islam militia have been killed since the start of the fighting on Sunday, according to a spokesman from the extremist group.

Abou Salim Taha said 10 militiamen were killed in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al-Bared where they are entrenched and which has been besieged by the army.

Fifteen others were killed in fighting in the nearby city of Tripoli, he said.

Nineteen Palestinian refugees have also been killed, according to Sultan Abul Aynayn, head of the mainstream Fatah movement in Lebanon.

One Lebanese civilian was killed in the crossfire when army troops attacked a building in Tripoli where Fatah Al-Islam militants were holed up on Sunday, police and hospital sources said.

The previous deadliest bout of internal fighting was in January 2000 when 45 people were killed in clashes between the army and Sunni militants from the Takfir wal-Hijra (Excommunication and Flight) group in the Dinnieh area of northern Lebanon.

There have been much higher death tolls, however, in a series of Israeli offensives against Lebanon since the civil war.