LAF hunts for fugitives after crushing Fatah Islam

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Lebanese soldiers searched through devastated buildings and scorched bushes along the Mediterranean coastline in northern Lebanon Monday, hunting for fugitives a day after the army crushed the remnants of a militant group, ending a three-month siege at a Palestinian refugee camp. The body of the leader of the militant Fatah Islam group, Shaker al-Absi, was identified by his wife at a hospital in the port city of Tripoli, said Nasser Adra, the hospital's director. However, Adra told The Associated Press that the hospital could not officially confirm the identity, which would have to come from judicial authorities after a DNA test. Al-Absi, a Palestinian linked to the late leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has not been seen or heard from since early in the fighting that erupted May 20.