Fatah

JERUSALEM -- Fighters from the Islamic group Hamas overran a key base and other positions of rival Fatah security forces in the Gaza Strip yesterday, pressing a broad assault that supporters of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called an attempted coup to seize the government. The Hamas advances signaled a possible turning point in the power struggle between the factions that has taken hundreds of lives since Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006, defeating Abbas' Fatah party.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon -- Heavy shelling and gunfire continued for the second day at the Nahr al Bared refugee camp, as the Lebanese army intensified its offensive against the Fatah al Islam militia. Three soldiers were killed and 15 were wounded in the fighting by yesterday afternoon, the army reported, raising the number of the army's deaths from the two-day offensive to six. Dozens of militants from Fatah al Islam, an al-Qaida-inspired group, have also been killed or wounded, the army said.

NAHR EL-BARED, Lebanon -- Government troops stormed positions held by al-Qaida-linked militants on the outskirts of this refugee camp in northern Lebanon yesterday, in some of the fiercest fighting in two weeks. At least 14 people, including two soldiers, were killed, according to security officials, who also said Lebanese forces moved against outlying paramilitary bases used by Fatah al-Islam militants without entering the camp itself. "Elite forces were able to take over a number of key posts that were used by snipers from group on the northern and eastern outskirts of the camp," a senior army official said on condition of anonymity.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Before Congress adjourned last week on another of its lengthy holidays, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeated a phrase she has used about the war in Iraq. She again referred to it as "the Bush policy of unending war in Iraq." She got it partly right. It is an unending war, at least until one side vanquishes the other side. There will be no truce in this war; no "38th Parallel," as with the two Koreas. This war will be unending, not because of "Bush policy" but because of the Islamofascists whose jihad they believe is a direct order from their "compassionate and merciful" God. Were the dominant surrender wing of the Democratic Party to have its way, American troops would immediately come home, causing all of Iraq to devolve into murderous chaos.

NAHR EL-BARED, Lebanon -- An Islamist militant group holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon will fight to the death, a spokesman said yesterday, adding that newly arrived military aid from the United States and other countries to the Lebanese army don't faze the fighters. Abu Salim, the spokesman for Fatah al-Islam, told McClatchy Newspapers in a phone interview that surrender was not an option and that fighters were ready for the next stage of battle with the Lebanese troops surrounding them in the olive groves, citrus orchards and a commercial strip just outside the Nahr el-Bared camp.

NAHR EL-BARED, Lebanon -- Palestinian refugees fleeing their homes yesterday under cover of a cease-fire expressed outrage at three days of shelling by the Lebanese army and sympathy for the militant group that was the target of the barrages. "They didn't want to harm us," said Amira Suleiman, referring to the radical Islamic militant group, Fatah al-Islam. "They are peaceful, reading the Quran." Suleiman and 10 other members of her family were among an estimated 15,000 residents who have streamed out of the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in the past two days.

NAHR EL-BARED, Lebanon -- Thousands of Palestinian refugees, caught for days in the crossfire between warring Lebanese government troops and Islamist militants with alleged al-Qaida ties, began fleeing their embattled camp last night as a lull in the fighting took hold. Intense street battles broke out around this refugee camp in northern Lebanon this week after an army raid against militants from a group called Fatah al-Islam wanted in a bank robbery. The fighting gave way to a shaky cease-fire yesterday afternoon as reports of a mounting civilian toll were aired on Arab-language television.

NAHR EL-BARED, Lebanon -- The Lebanese army unleashed a torrent of firepower yesterday on a Palestinian refugee camp that is home to a militant group loyal to al-Qaida, amid fears that the two-day-old conflict could spread and undermine a government already beset by political schism. The fighting has claimed at least 50 lives and was the worst internal conflict since Lebanon's 15-year civil war ended in 1990. Fighting erupted in another Palestinian refugee camp in the south, and a bomb exploded in an upscale Sunni Muslim neighborhood in the capital, injuring six people.

JERUSALEM -- Rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah wage pitched battles in the streets of the Gaza Strip. Three truces have come and gone. In four days, at least 40 people have been killed, including at least 14 yesterday as an increasingly violent struggle threatens to bring down what had been called a Palestinian "unity" government. When their new political power-sharing coalition was unveiled in March, leaders of Fatah and Hamas pledged to put an end to their fighting. But the ferocious violence shredding the Gaza Strip this week has made a mockery of the agreement.

JERUSALEM -- The anarchy gripping the Gaza Strip deepened yesterday as 11 Palestinians were killed in factional fighting, eight in a single ambush near the border with Israel. It was the deadliest day amid a surge of Palestinian violence that began Sunday between members of the rival Fatah and Hamas factions. In three days, 20 people have been killed and dozens wounded. Palestinian leaders appealed for an end to the street fighting, which has undermined a national "unity" government meant to bring the factions together.