Fatah colonel killed in Lebanon's largest refugee camp

A senior member of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement was shot dead in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon in south Lebanon Saturday, a security official said.

"Colonel Talal al-Ourdouni was shot dead by two unidentified men while he was walking in the southern part of Ain al-Hilweh camp," the Palestinian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"He was accompanied by two bodyguards, one of whom was also killed and the other was wounded."

Ourdouni headed a division within the Palestinian national security service in Ain al-Hilweh, the largest of the refugee camps in Lebanon, where armed forces went on the alert after the murders.

He had been the target of several previous attempts to kill him.

Most Palestinians live in squalid conditions in the country's 12 official camps.

The Lebanese army does not enter the camps, under a tacit deal agreed after the 1975-1990 civil war. Palestinian factions are responsible for security.

Ain al-Hilweh has been the location for the settling of scores between several factions, and a breeding ground for extremist groups because of the poverty there.