Fighting erupts in northern Jordan

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32660, 16 July 1971, Page 9

Fighting erupts in northern Jordan

(N.2.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

BEIRUT, July 15.

The Palestine guerrilla leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, has made a late-night dash by air from Cairo to the Syrian-Jordan frontier amid reports of further heavy fighting in northern Jordan between his commando forces and King Hussein’s army and air force.

The Palestinian Cairo- ■ based radio Sawt AlAssifa said Mr Arafat, t who had been at the Palestine National Congress in Cairo, was now “at our advance positions in Derra,” near the border between Syria and north Jordan. The radio, in a broadcast late last night, issued a statement by the Palestine Liberation Organisation calling on the Arab States to impose a political boycott on the Jordanian regime. Soon after Mr Arafat reached Derra, guerrillas accused the Jordanian Air Force of bombing their posts in northern Jordan with phosphorous and anti-per-sonnel bombs to dislodge commandos from their positions. The army was using flares to light up the area for night operations by its units in the area, and fighting was still raging, a guerrilla communique said. The Jordanian Army, according to the guerrilla communique, was massing for renewed attacks, expected at daylight. Earlier, Sawt AI-Assifa Radio had said that the Jordanian Army was using armoured units in the Jerash and Aljoun areas of northern Jordan, but that so far all attacks had been repulsed. “There are scores of killed and wounded,” it said. In Amman, a Jordanian Government spokesman said that Government troops had dislodged commandos from populated areas in the north of the country after they had refused to leave voluntarily. A Reuters correspondent, Mohammed Attalah, reported last night from Jerash that Jordanian troops and Palestinian commandos had been fighting through the day in the wooded hills of northern Jordan—each side blaming the other for causing the new flare-up. The thud of exploding shells reverberated through the forests round Jerash, an ancient Roman settlement once a popular tourist attraction. Columns of smoke could be seen rising high into the sky. ■■■ GENERAL OFFENSIVE

A Government spokesman in Amman accused the guerrillas of attacking farmers in the Jerash area over the last month in a bid to destroy the country’s economy. Statements released in Beirut by the Palestine Resistance Organisation charged that King Hussein’s forces had launched at dawn a general offensive to liquidate remaining commando bases in Jordan.

Amid the developments in Jordan came word from Cairo that Egypt had asked King Hussein to postpone a

scheduled .visit there on July 2s. At the same time, the Egyptian Government expresstd- deep concern over the reported fighting in Jordan and urged Amman authorities to put an end to it. The Foreign Ministry’s note about the visit said that the postponement was asked for because the authorities

would be preoccupied with meetings of the Arab Socialist Union, Egypt’s sole political organisation. No new date for the visit was given. In Amman, Royal Cabinet sources said that King Hussein realised that July 23 might not have been quite suitable, and hoped he could meet President Sadat at a more convenient time.