By Tom Perry

BEIRUT, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Despite the Lebanese army's victory over Islamist fighters at a Palestinian refugee camp, al Qaeda-inspired militancy remains a threat in a country that has weak security and is brimming with targets, experts say.

The army took control of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp on Sunday after more than three months of battling the Fatah al-Islam group holed up inside. The fighting was Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Although Fatah al-Islam has no organisational ties to al Qaeda, it shares al Qaeda's hardline Sunni Islamist ideology and drew fighters from across the Arab world, including a large contingent of Saudis, to the refugee camp.

The group's stated aims were to spread its hardline interpretation of Islam among Palestinians and to fight Israel.

Alongside its proximity to the Jewish state, Lebanon offers plenty of other possible targets for Sunni militants, including thousands of U.N. peacekeepers and large Christian and Shi'ite Muslim populations.

"Lebanon is an open arena where they can find all their enemies in one small country," said Ahmad Moussalli, a professor of politics and Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut.

"I think we are not finished yet. We will be seeing a new wave of Islamist radicals who will take on a lot of targets," he said, adding that revenge may also motivate Fatah al-Islam sympathisers to strike at the army or society.

The head of Lebanon's army, which lost 162 soldiers in the fighting, has declared Fatah al-Islam "a branch of al Qaeda".

General Michel Suleiman said Lebanon has been saved from the kind of violence which is tearing apart Iraq -- a main front for al Qaeda. "If we imagine what this terrorist group could have done if it had proceeded in its plan, we would have seen the Iraqi scene afflicting Lebanon," he told As-Safir newspaper.

Some of Fatah al-Islam's fighters, thought to number some 300 before the battle, had fought in Iraq before coming to Lebanon, Palestinian and Lebanese officials have said.

HOME-GROWN PROBLEM

In both countries, the state has a weak grip on security, giving leeway for militant groups to organise. In parts of Lebanon, Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah has taken on some of the roles of the state, including security.

Lebanon has suffered from a security and intelligence vacuum since the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005, analysts say. The Beirut government also accuses Damascus of fomenting instability in Lebanon since then.

The anti-Syrian cabinet has described Fatah al-Islam as a tool of Syrian intelligence -- a charge denied by the group and Damascus.

Prominent Lebanese Islamist Fathi Yakan said Lebanon still faced a threat from Sunni militant groups such as Jund al-Sham and Usbat al-Ansar. Like Fatah al-Islam, both are based in a Palestinian camp and therefore beyond state control.

Jund al-Sham clashed with the army at Ain al-Hilweh camp in south Lebanon in the early days of the Nahr al-Bared battle. The government said Fatah al-Islam had ordered the small group into action.

"What has happened could be the closure of the Fatah al-Islam file," Yakan told Reuters. "But we cannot consider that the files of the other movements or the al Qaeda organisation have been closed," added Yakan, leader of the Islamic Action Front -- one of the biggest Sunni Islamist groups in Lebanon.

While Fatah al-Islam drew fighters from across the Arab world, the presence of many Lebanese in its ranks highlighted a home-grown problem with Sunni Islamist militancy.

Some of Fatah al-Islam's Lebanese fighters had been part of a similar group which battled the army in 2000 in the north -- long an incubator for all types of Sunni Islamism and a fertile militant recruiting ground.

Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on Islamist movements, said militants may think twice before acting in Lebanon because of the army's tough action against Fatah al-Islam.

"The phenomenon will appear again, but not the same size," he said.

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