Scores die in huge Beirut bomb blast

Press, 14 August 1978, Page 8

Scores die in huge Beirut bomb blast

NZPA-Reuter Beirut At least "0 people yesterday died when a huge explosion wrecked a building used by a pro-Iraqi Palestine commando group, rescuers said. The blast flattened the eight-floor building which housed 28 apartments. Rescue teams used bulldozers to sift the rubble. Witnesses said taxis, private cars, and even flatbed lorries had been used to take casualties to hospital., The blast set off a fire and thick black smoke curled from the debris. The tremendous force of the explosion severed power lines more than 100 m from the building. It flattened cars parked across the road. “We have no final num-

Iber,” said a young Palestin-' I ian commando, pointing his! ( Kalashnikov rifle to the; heap of debris. “Under these) : ruins, there must be many( itnore bodies. Take an aver-) age of 10 people per apart-ji ■ment and you realise that 60 ■dead is a low estimate.” I According to somei i accounts, the building) | housed three offices of the |; ■radical Palestine Liberation!) ■ Front led by Abul Abbas, a! i commando chief with anli ;openly pro-Iraqi policy. An-! i other version said P.L.F.. (members had private flats in!: the building. The blast was seen as yet h another bloody chapter in! the feud between pro-Iraqil’ Palestinian groups and the! Fatah group led by the Pa-il lestine Liberation Organisa-fi jtion chief Yasser Arafat. |; I The feud has featured full-jl

(scale battles in Palestinian : refugee camps in Lebanon, (assassinations of Fatah leaders, and attacks on Iraqi inistitutions in cities as far )apart as London and Kairachi. ; The blast, which partly wrecked a neighbouring (building, was thought to have been caused by nearly 1200 kg of T.N.T., Agence (France-Presse reports. ! The P.L.F. later vowed retaliation for the blast. ! A spokesman, who did not I accuse any group by name, !said the attack had been (carried out by an “enemv (organisation "whose name ‘will soon be known and I which will be punished.” ! The spokesman said the i blast occurred little more (than an hour after the (group’s central committee jhad ended a meeting.