Terror leader possibly dead after siege at refugee camp in Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- The leader of an Islamist militant group may be among the 39 insurgents killed as Lebanese forces overtook a Palestinian refugee camp where militants had holed up and staged attacks for months, according to a Lebanese official and media reports Monday.

Authorities were conducting DNA tests on tissue samples from a body believed to be Shaker al-Abssi, the leader of Fatah al-Islam, said a military source familiar with operations inside the Nahr el-Bared camp near Tripoli.

Though the Lebanese army could not immediately confirm the report, media outlets were reporting that al-Abssi is among the dead.

An army source told Al-Jazeera that al-Abssi's wife and daughter identified his corpse at a Tripoli hospital. Nasser Adra, a hospital director in Tripoli, told The Associated Press that al-Abssi's wife and two captured militants identified the body. Adra said, however, he could not officially confirm the identity, according to the AP.

Some Lebanese and Syrian officials have cited links between Fatah al-Islam and al Qaeda, but al-Abssi told the Arabic daily newspaper Asharq al-Awsat in March that his group had no "organizational connection" to al Qaeda.

In 2004, a Jordanian military court convicted al-Abssi and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in absentia for the 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, a U.S. diplomat who was gunned down in front of his Amman home. Al-Zarqawi, who later became leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad last year.

Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr repeatedly has said he wants al-Abssi "dead or alive."

The military source familiar with the Sunday siege told CNN that the results of the DNA tests are expected Monday.

Other militants were captured in the fighting, but it was not clear how many, a Lebanese army source said late Sunday.

After the Lebanese military wrested control of the camp from the militants, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora declared victory during a television address.

"We overcame all those terrorists who were willing to destroy our country," Siniora said. "This is an hour of pride and happiness."

Three Lebanese soldiers died in the Sunday fighting. Since May 20, when the standoff between Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese army began, 158 Lebanese troops have been killed.

Clashes erupted at dawn Sunday as Fatah al-Islam militants "attacked army positions in a desperate attempt to escape from Nahr el-Bared camp," a military statement said Sunday.

"The Lebanese army confronted the militants and killed and captured a large number of them," according to the statement.

The battles came a day after Lebanese troops seized control of a house belonging to Abu Hureira, al-Abssi's deputy commander, a Lebanese military official said.

Smoke filled the sky over the bombed-out refugee camp Saturday as the Lebanese military tried to drive out the militants entrenched there.

Fighting at the camp marks the country's worst internal violence since the end of Lebanon's civil war in 1990.

Last week, the chief of U.S. forces in the Middle East met with Siniora and senior Lebanese military officers. Adm. William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, discussed several objectives, including more counterterrorism training for Lebanon's military, U.S. military officials said.

The Bush administration has supplied the Lebanese army with ammunition, body armor and night-vision goggles during its three-month battle with Fatah al-Islam militants. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Nada el-Husseini contributed to this report.

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