LEBANON CRISIS Staff Kidnapped In Border Raids

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32127, 24 October 1969, Page 11

LEBANON CRISIS Staff Kidnapped In Border Raids

(NZ.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

BEIRUT, October 23.

Unidentified armed forces raided three border posts along the Lebanon’s sealed frontier with Syria in the early hours of this morning and kidnapped 20 officials, the Lebanese Army announced today. An Army statement broadcast by Radio Beirut said that the posts of Maasna, Al Ariba, and Al Baki’a were attacked.

A force of 50 men in military uniforms and Arab headdress attacked the Maasna post, on the main road between Beirut and Damascus, while rockets were pumped into it from the surrounding hills. Security forces beat off the attack and armoured cars silenced the rocket launchers/ according to the Army state-1 ment. The other two posts were each attacked by 150 men, and 20 gendarmes, Customs men and security officials were kidnapped. The statement did not say whether fighting took place at Al Ariba and Al Baki'a. which are smaller posts in the north of the Lebanon and the combined staff of which, at night, would not be more than about a score. Observers in Beirut say that the night attacks are a! grave development in the deteriorating Lebanese crisis,' which began after week-end clashes between security:

forces and Palestinian com-; rnandos in the south. These clashes prompted Syria, the most vociferous of the commandos’ supporters, to close her border with the Lebanon and threaten further measures against Beirut. The reported raids could have been carried out either by commandos—as the reference to the Arab headdress worn by the raiders indicates ' —or by Syrian troops dis-' guised as commandos.

In either case, the raids could hardly have taken place without Syrian knowledge and co-operation, according to the Beirut observers. Maasna is separated from the corresponding Syrian border post by five miles of tangled hills, but Al Baki'a stands on open ground, and at Al Ariba the Lebanese and Syrian posts are less than a 'mile apart. With tbe Syrian side of the border sealed and closely guarded, it would not have i been possible for large bodies of men—there were 350 in all, according to the Lebanese — to make an attack on the ■ frontier posts without at least I the passive encouragement of I the Syrians. Damascus, whose Ba'athist Government is among the most radical in the Arab world, has been feeding Syrian - trained commandos across Mount Hermon into i the south of the Lebanon for the last year, with two I objects. One was to enable the ! commandos to operate against Israel from terrain more suited to guerrilla warfare I than the Syrian-Israeli ceasefire line The other was to divert ! Israeli retaliation from Syria !to the Lebanon, and thus ! embarrass the Beirut Government, which was brought down last April ov.er the issue of freedom of action for the commandos.