BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanese security troops have raided an apartment in northern Lebanon and confiscated hand grenades, machine guns and other military gear, a security official said Friday.

The raid by state security agents took place shortly after midnight Thursday in the Abi Samra neighborhood in the northern port city of Tripoli, where clashes between security troops and Islamic militants killed 10 people last month.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give press statements, said troops raided the empty apartment based on a tip, and found machine guns, night vision goggles, uniforms and other military gear.

He said the building belonged to a Sunni Muslim cleric from Tripoli, Fathi Yakan, who has acted as a mediator between the army and the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam militant group. The militants have been fighting the Lebanese army in the nearby Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp since May 20.

Yakan's office, however, issued a statement Friday saying the apartment had not been used by the cleric for more than seven years, and added that reports of finding machine guns and grenades were exaggerated and false. "It is possible that the apartment had some old, leftover ammunition," the statement said. It did not elaborate.

Meanwhile, security officials said they had arrested an Islamic militant identified as Walid al-Bustani after raiding an apartment in Tripoli's area Thursday.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity for the same reasons, said the man was suspected of being a high-ranking member of Fatah Islam. They said investigations were ongoing to confirm this.

Fighting between the army and Fatah Islam militants in Nahr el-Bared continued Friday. The state-run National News Agency said a mortar fired from inside the camp landed on a house in the nearby Bibnine area, slightly wounding a one-year-old child.

The fighting at the Palestinian refugee camp has become the worst internal violence since Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, and is believed to have killed more than 160 people, including 84 soldiers, at least 60 militants and more than 20 civilians.

Fatah Islam group is believed to be made up of mostly foreign Sunni Muslim fighters, and Lebanon's Western-backed government has accused the group of trying to launch a rebellion in the north of the country. -AP