BEIRUT - The Internal Security Force (ISF) issued an explanation on Tuesday after it emerged that the force's commander, General Ashraf Rifi, spoke on the telephone with a member of the Fatah al-Islam militant group shortly before their showdown with the Lebanese military at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in 2007.

A Lebanese television station broadcast recordings of two telephone calls between Rifi and a Fatah al-Islam negotiator called Ahmed Merhi made during a stand-off between the ISF and the militant group in Tripoli in May 2007.

The security forces had surrounded a residential compound in Mitein Street in which armed militants were sheltering when the ISF says that it received the telephone calls from Merhi, during which he tried to broker an end to the siege.

The first call was apparently made from a Lebanese mobile telephone number, identified as 03 135 727. Rifi agreed to speak with Merhi in an effort to diffuse the tense situation and allow civilians to leave the premises.

The ISF say that once civilian families had been evacuated from the besieged area, Rifi stopped speaking with Merhi, who by this time had made a further 17 calls from a telephone number in Syria, identified as 00963 955555205.

Merhi realized that once the families were out of the building, the Fatah al-Islam members would be arrested by the security services and told the ISF chief that he had "40 cruel fighters" ready to "blow up Tripoli" if the assault on Mitein Street went ahead.

"Let it be war, then" Rifi replied. "The battle has already started, and there is nowhere to retreat to." The ISF raid went ahead, prompting gun battles on the street and in the surrounding area as the militants resisted arrest for hours. The violence quickly spread to Nahr al-Bared. It was the beginning of a 15-week battle that would leave more than 400 people dead and the camp totally destroyed.

Neither number that Merhi used to contact Rifi answered calls from The Daily Star

on Tuesday, with the Syrian number playing a recorded message that said it "was not currently assigned."

Merhi himself has been arrested in Lebanon and has apparently told security officials that Fatah al-Islam was a Syrian creation designed to destabilize the anti-Syrian governing bloc in Lebanon. Damascus denies this, and recently aired the "confessions" of Fatah al-Islam members who said that the group was actually funded by parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri's Future movement.

The ISF have defended the phone calls, claiming they were a stalling tactic to allow civilians to be evacuated from the area where the "terrorist group" was hiding.

"Some negotiation processes precede or accompany most security operations to avoid military confrontation or even bloody events," a statement said, adding that the judiciary is well aware that the phone calls had taken place.

In a separate development, a local daily Al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday that the fugitive leader of Fatah al-Islam has been arrested and is in a Syrian jail. The newspaper is well known for its strong links to Syria, and the report appears to confirm rumors that Abssi is being held there.

Many of Abssi's senior associates have also been captured as the net has tightened around the group, which has in the past used the relative lawlessness of Lebanon's Palestinian camps to set up its operations. Palestinian rather than Lebanese authorities are responsible for security in the camps.

Palestinian leaders in Beddawi, fearing another Nahr al-Bared style confrontation that would see Lebanese security forces tackle militants in refugee camps directly, have acted against suspected militants.

But in the Ain al-Hilweh camp near Saida, Lebanon's biggest, cooperation from Palestinian authorities is proving harder to secure. The camp is home to Abed Awad, known as "Prince of Al-Qaeda." He is said to be a senior member of Fatah al-Islam, and is also wanted in connection with the "Jarreh cell," a group responsible for two deadly bombings in Tripoli over the summer.

But Palestinian authorities in the camp have until now have been unable or unwilling to hand him over to Lebanese security services, prompting the Lebanese army to hold a meeting with Palestinian leaders on Tuesday.

Speaking to 50 political and civil society leaders from Ain al-Hilweh, the deputy head of military intelligence in the Leban-ese Armed Forces (LAF) Col Abbas Ibrahim described Awad and his circle as "a gang of terrorists who have taken 70,000 people in Ain al-Hilweh hostage."

He said that the aim of Awad's group was to turn Ain al Hilweh into a "second Nahr al-Bared." He urged the Palestinians to hand the men over, warning that the LAF would take action against the camp if they were not captured. "The Lebanese army is capable of acting unilaterally to get these people. We don't want to do it, but don't push it too far," he said. -Daily Star