NAHR AL BARED (Lebanon), July 14: Lebanese troops closed in on positions of militants holed up in a besieged Palestinian refugee camp on Saturday after two days of heavy fighting in which 11 soldiers were killed.

The troops traded machinegun fire with militiamen of Fatah Al Islam in Nahr Al Bared camp, which came under heavy army bombardment early on Saturday, an AFP correspondent said.

A spokesman said the army had further closed in on the militants who now only controlled an area 300m by 600m on a hill in the camp.

The militants fired eight Katyusha rockets which struck outside the camp, causing no casualties, said the spokesman.

“The battle is nearing the decisive phase and the military solution will not take much longer... We should expect a sudden collapse of Fatah Al Islam,” said Sultan Abul Aynayn, head of the mainstream Fatah movement.

“The army will extend its full control over the camp, probably within the next 48 hours,” he said.

Mr Aynayn told a news conference that the rocket attacks on civilian areas outside the camp “are the last bullet of the Fatah Al Islam gang which thought that the army would stop its offensive.”

In addition to the 11 soldiers killed, at least another 50 were wounded in heavy clashes over the past two days, military sources said.

The deaths brought to at least 184 the number of people killed since the fighting first broke out on May 20. That includes 95 soldiers and at least 68 militants.

While artillery and tanks blasted the camp, the military said elite troops on the ground seized control of a number of buildings and militant positions, while army engineers cleared mines and demolished barriers.

Explosives planted in a building blew up as an army patrol was inside, an army spokesman said. Two soldiers were trapped under the rubble of the building, parts of which collapsed. “They are alive and we are trying to get them out,” he said.

About 80 remaining Fatah Al Islam fighters are being supported by dozens of pro-Syrian Palestinian militants, according to a Palestinian source.The showdown continued as Lebanon’s political factions, including the Hezbollah, began two days of talks in France to try to ease the deadlock that has paralysed the nation for months.—AFP