Syria to support guerrillas still

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33062, 1 November 1972, Page 17

Syria to support guerrillas still

(.V.Z P_4. -Reuter—Copyright)

BEIRUT, October 31.

Syria has said that it will not stop supporting Arab guerrillas because of Israeli attacks on their bases.

The warning came in a commentary by Damascus Radio last night only hours after Syria and Israel traded blows over the uneasy northern cease-fire line.

“The only way to curb Israeli attacks and check its arrogance,” the radio said, “is to improve the fighting spirit of the masses and give added muscle to the commando movement.”

Rescue workers were still sifting through the debris left by two Israeli air raids which took a heavy price in Arab life and property. No official casualty figures have yet been released after the raids — directed first against guerrillas’ positions and then against a Syrian Army camp near the capital. Syrian military and civilian hospitals reported receiving between 55 and 65 dead and about 70 wounded. In between the raids, Syrian artillery pounded the Israeli • occupied Golan Heights. A military spokesman said that heavy Israeli casualties were inflicted during a barrage on Israeli positions, including settlements and surface-to-air missile sites. But Israel reported only one soldier wounded in the half-hour battle. The sudden flare-up came less than 24 hours after West Germany released three guerrillas, held after the

(Munich Olympic massacre of til Israeli athletes, in exchange for an airliner 'hijacked by Arab guerrillas. | ■ The 18 hostages held oni I board the Lufthansa plane | returned to West Germany .yesterday after spending the ; night in Tripoli, Libya, where I they were freed by the ■ guerrillas. The main interest here now lies in what action Libya and i Egypt—Syria’s partners in the Federation of Arab Republics—intend to take to j counter the Israeli attacks. The federation’s foreign policy council, created last [year to pool the three countries’ economic, military, and political potential, is due to meet in Damascus today, and jit is believed the raids will [figure prominently in the talks. After similar raids earlier [this year, the federation said lin a joint statement by the ' Heads of State that any attack against any of the [three partners would be considered an aggression against !all three and the necessary measure would be taken.

Yesterday’s raids left behind a trail of bombed homes and broken bodies.

At the village of Douma, 12 miles outside Damascus, rescue workers last night were still removing the dead and wounded, 10 hours after

the planes had returned to Israel.

Villagers reported that the jets came in from the direction of the Lebanese border and shelled a number of Palestinian commando positions and Syrian farmers’ homes in the area. Reporters who visited the scene saw ambulances still taking away casualties and bulldozers removing debris from half-demolished houses. Syrian Army engineers worked throughout the day to defuse 10001 b time bombs, acording to some reporters. In a military hospital near Damascus, reporters were shown 17 bodies, most of them apparently civilians, including women and children. In Ain al-Sukhneh area, near Douma, the bodies of a whole family—father, mother and four children—lay near two craters, together with some dead cows and sheep.

Villagers said that the craters, about 16ft deep, were caused by delayed action bombs which exploded about an hour after the air raid. Later in the evening, Israeli fighter - bombers screamed in to attack a Syrian Army camp in central .Syria and a Syrian military ■ spokesman announced last I night that a number of I Syrian soldiers were I wounded.