Lebanon said on Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for the leader of an Al-Qaeda inspired Islamist militia whose fighters were involved in a deadly 15-week battle with government troops. Judge Ghassan Oweydat said the warrant has been issued for Fatah al-Islam's Palestinian chief Shaker al-Abssi, whose fate remains unknown, and 36 other fugitive militants.The judge is handling the case over the standoff between Fatah-al Islam and Lebanese troops that erupted in May at the impoverished Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in the north of the country. Almost 400 people were killed, including an estimated 222 militants and 168 soldiers, until the fighting ended after a final assault by the army on September 2. Oweydat suggested that Abssi, whose wife had at one stage identified his body in a morgue although DNA tests subsequently determined it was not him, was still alive and probably in Lebanon.
Also on Friday, general prosecutor Saeed Mirza charged 20 suspected Fatah al-Islam militants, 17 of them in absentia, with murder and terrorism, his office said. They included 16 Palestinians and four Russians, the statement said. A total of 331 members of Fatah al-Islam, including 150 in detention, have been charged since August in connection with the bloodshed.