Renewed fighting in Jordan

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32567, 29 March 1971, Page 15

Renewed fighting in Jordan

-Reuter —Copyright) BEIRUT, March 28. Two days of fighting between Palestine guerrillas and Jordanian troops in the North Jordanian town of Irbid have left at least 40 dead and wounded according to Government statements from Amman. A Jordanian statement last night said that fighting had died down; a guerrilla spokesman in Beirut said that clashes were continuing. In Amman, an Interior Ministry spokesman said last night that the fighting had taken the lives of eight troops and security men and wounded another 20. Ten civilians were also killed or wounded; he gave no commando casualties. The guerrilla spokesmen in Beirut later charged that some districts of Irbid, Jor-

dan’s second city, had come under artillery and machinegun fire. Government units had entered a refugee camp, setting off a bitter exchange of small-arms fire, he said. Irbid was placed under curfew yesterday and searched by Jordanian troops for Palestine commando arms and suspects. CHARGE DENIED The Government spokesman in Amman said that the burnt body of an air force man had been found in a Fatah commando administrative office in Irbid. It was believed, he said, that the airman had been burnt alive. Fatah representatives m Beirut immediately denied the report, describing it as an attempt by the Jordanian authorities to "cover up brutal acts against the peaceful people of Irbid.” They also charged the Jordanian authorities of “mobilising hatred against the Palestinian resistance movement” The Jordanian Foreign Minister (Mr Abdullah Salah)

yesterday summoned Arab representatives in Amman, to tell them “what actually happened in Irbid.” Radio Amman said that the Minister handed the envoys a memorandum setting out a Government account of Friday’s clashes, which led to an appeal for Arab intervention by the central committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Observers in Beirut said that the fighting in Irbid might affect Jordanian relations with its neighbour, Syria. According to an official Syrian statement yesterday. President al Assad of Syria summoned the Jordanian Ambassador in Damascus and informed him that Syria supported commando action; and denounced what he called “a tank attack on a refugee camp.” The denunciation comes after an apparent recent improvement in relations between the two countries,

which were at their lowest ebb last September, during fierce fighting between Jordanian troops and Palestine commandos, in Amman.

Moscow denial

The Soviet Union Communist Party newspaper, "Pravda,” has described as “fantastic” and “absurd” a report that Russia would allow 300,000 Jews to emigrate to Israel in the next few years. “Fabrications of this kind are undoubtedly calculated as an attempt to intimidate Arabs with the threat of mass emigration from the Soviet Union, ana to cause damage to SovietArab relations,” the newspaper says.—Moscow, March 28.