The fierce battle between the Lebanese Government and a radical Islamist faction shifted to one of Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps today, bringing civilians into the line of fire and raising fears of a period of instability for the country.

More than 50 people have now been killed in two days of street battles, bombings and shelling between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam, a heavily-armed Palestinian splinter group that is believed to have connections with al-Qaeda. The Government appears intent on destroying the group after it launched co-ordinated attacks on army patrols yesterday, killing at least 27 soldiers.

Showing how marginal and dangerous the group is felt to be, the Government today received offers of help from the mainstream Palestinian factions in the country to help wipe out Fatah al-Islam but there fears that its terror campaign presages further attempts to destabilise Lebanon as it attempts to prosecute the killers of Rafik al-Hariri, the former Prime Minister blown up in 2004.

“We are open... to all the demands of the Lebanese state. We hope to cooperate in order to eliminate the Fatah al-Islam phenomenon, on the condition innocent civilians do not pay a high price,” said Abbas Ziki, Lebanon representative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

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Meanwhile, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, Usama Hamdan, stressed that many members of the group, which was formed just six months ago, were not Palestinian and did not share their aims. “The Palestinians are not responsible for what is happening and everyone should help alleviate the suffering of civilians in the camp," he said.

In some of the most intense internal fighting seen since the country's civil war, the Lebanese Army has brought M48 tanks, mortars and special forces troops to the perimeter of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp north of Tripoli and started striking buildings inside that are thought to belong to the faction.

Abiding, so far, by its legal agreement not to enter the crowded settlement — one of 12 official Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and home to around 40,000 people — the Army was reduced to using snipers and mortars and destroying buildings from the outside, raising the risk of civilian casualties.

Reports from inside the camp said as many as 34 people had been killed and 150 wounded but the number was impossible to verify. Mosques inside the camp could be heard broadcasting appeals for the Government to stop shelling while the Red Cross also demanded a truce.

“We are asking that they stop fighting and establish humanitarian corridors so we can take care of the wounded and the dead,” said a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross. An agreement to allow civilians to leave the camp has reportedly been struck but very few people are believed to have accepted the offer.

A spokesman for Fatah al-Islam, which has vowed to strike targets across Lebanon and abroad, told the Associated Press: “It is a life or death battle. Their aim is to wipe out Fatah Islam. We will respond and we know how to respond."

The siege was mounted after yesterday's attacks, which saw the Army fighting running street battles with Fatah al-Islam in Tripoli, an ambush at the gates of Nahr al-Bared and a bomb blast in Beirut.

It has focused attention on the lawless state of Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, which are considered hotbeds for unusually violent Islamist militant groups and a means for Syria to destabilise the country.

Fatah al-Islam are precisely the sort of organisation that the Western-backed Government of Fouad Siniora is worried about.

Small, extremist and well-armed, the Sunni group broke off violently from Fatah al-Intifada, a larger pro-Syrian Palestinian movement late last year. It is led by Chaker al-Absi, a Jordanian-born Palestinian thought to be a former comrade of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the brutal former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Illustrating the group's international reach, among the dead yesterday was Saddam Hajj Dib, a senior militant wanted for his alleged part in a plot to blow up passenger trains in Germany last year. The Lebanese press have reported that fighters from Bangladesh, Yemen and across the Middle East were also among those killed .

The Government describes Fatah al-Islam as a tool of Syria, and its assault yesterday is considered an attempt to unsettle Lebanon as the country is trying to mount a UN tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the assassination of al-Hariri, the former Prime Minister whose death has been blamed on senior Syrian officials.

The Lebanese Cabinet met today to discuss the next stage of its assault against the group. Although it appears to have broad support in this particular fight, the Government of Mr Siniora is locked in a tense political confrontation over its attempt to mount the Hariri tribunal, with many groups, including Hezbollah, saying the prosecution and its expected accusations against Syria and pro-Syrian groups in the country could lead to widespread disorder.

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