Syria-Right alliance strained

Press, 8 May 1978, Page 8

Syria-Right alliance strained

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Ri g h t-wing militiamen hold strategic positions in Beirut’s shell-scarred Ain Rummaneh district yesterday, after bloody clashes with Syrian-dominated Arab League peace forces policing the Lebanese civil-war truce.

Right-wing reports said Saturday’s fighting — involving tanks, rockets, artillery, and machine-guns — killed at least three people and wounded 19. It underlined increasingly-strained relations between Syria and the Lebanese Right. i

But high-ranking officials' of the Lebanese front of Right-wing organisations said they were confident efforts to contain the violence had been successful — for the time being. Last month the Syrians i used tanks, multiple rocket-1 launchers, and heavy artil-| lery to quell fighting be-1 tween rival militiamen in] Christian Ain Rummaneh' and neighbouring Muslim Shiya. An estimated 50] i people died, and 250 were: wounded. ' A row in Lebanon over*

Syrian intervention was followed ‘by the Government’s resignation on April 19.

Palestinian officials have said in Beirut that an Israeli soldier captured in south Lebanon last month will be tried by a Palestinian guerrilla court in a week’s time.

I They said Private AbraIham Amram, aged 32, would 'be charged with engaging in ; war against the Arabs and entering Lebanon to commit aggression.

The officials of the Popular Front for the Liberation 'of Palestine General-Com-

mand indicated that it would be a show trial directed against Israel, and that Private Amram was unlikely to receive a harsh sentence.

One guerrilla leader said: “It is not so much this sol-, dier as the Government of Israel going on trial. We will be judging Israeli aggression through Private Amram.

“There is no question of his being sentenced to death as a war criminal because we have no firm evidence he killed or tortured anybody.”