Islamist militants killed two Lebanese soldiers at a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon today in an apparent attempt to relieve pressure on al Qaeda-inspired fighters besieged by the army in the north.
Two fighters of the Sunni militant group Jund al-Sham were also killed in rifle, grenade and mortar exchanges that erupted at an entrance to the Ain al-Hilweh camp near the southern port city of Sidon.
Witnesses said the fighting was started by Jund al-Sham last night but later subsided.
Three soldiers and two civilians were also wounded.
The clashes were the latest jolt to stability in Lebanon, already shaken by a protracted political crisis pitting the Western-backed government against Syria's Lebanese allies.
Hundreds of civilians fled Ain al-Hilweh, a sprawling shantytown perched on a hillside above Sidon, 26 miles south of the capital Beirut.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction dominates the camp, but small Islamist groups have a foothold there and in several other refugee camps in Lebanon.
