Militant may be alive, says Lebanon

BEIRUT —  The head of a Sunni Islamist militant group thought to have been killed last week when Lebanese forces battled their way into a Palestinian refugee camp may still be at large, a Lebanese judicial official said Monday.

DNA tests found that the body initially believed to be that of Shaker Abbsi was not the Fatah al Islam leader after all, Prosecutor General Said Mirza said in a statement released by the state-run news agency.

Abbsi’s wife and daughter misidentified the partly disfigured body, which was among corpses of fighters taken to a public morgue last week, according to military sources.

Abbsi’s Al Qaeda-inspired group waged a three-month battle with military forces for control of the Nahr el Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. The clashes claimed more than 300 lives, including more than 150 soldiers and dozens of civilians.

The Lebanese army declared victory over the group after blocking an escape by the fighters Sept. 2. A Yemeni fighter captured later confessed that Abbsi had fled the camp with four other fighters, according to the judiciary statement. “Abbsi was in good health and carrying an explosives belt and a Kalashnikov assault rifle,” it said.

Lebanese troops are still hunting militants who might have escaped to villages and orchards near the camp, a military spokesperson said.

On Monday, Lebanon held a conference at which international help for the reconstruction of the camp was pledged. An estimated 31,000 Palestinian refugees are barred from returning to the camp, which is still classified as a military zone. The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon said it would donate $10 million to a United Nations agency that is helping Palestinian refugees.