Arafat strives to halt inter-Shi’ite battles
NZPA Beirut Rival supporters of Iraq and Iran among Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslims battled with mortars, rockets, and mach-ine-guns for a third day in Beirut yesterday. The police reported that a' total of 20 combatants have been killed. The'police said more than 40 others were wounded in the! proxy war that Iraq and Iran, 'Striving for dominance in the Gulf, fought out on Lebanese territory rather than on their common border. < A police spokesman said the' midday fighting that shattered' a brief arranged. by Palestinian guerrillas and’Syrian troops; tapered into intermittent sniping on the southern fringes of the capital at midafternoon. The Palestine Liberation Organisation chairman ' (Mr Yasser Arafat) and the com-
mander of Syrian troops who J police Lebanon’s three-year-1 old civil war armistice, were i said to ' be' applying maxi- ] mum pressure to bring the ; inter-Shi’ite fighting to an i end. Units from Mr Arafat’s < tough military police patrol- 1 ed the embattled low-income j residential neighbourhood of j Chiyah on Beirut’s southern t edge and the Bourj El Barajneh suburb, blaring appeals i for. restraint from loudspea- s ker vans. < Syrian troops and armoured personnel carriers ringed < the Iraqi and Iranian em- ; bassies, which were both: rocketed the day before, to ■ guard against fresh attacks, i Both had requested protec-1 tion. The two embassies lie 1 within 100 m of each other, : and Iranian embassy offi- • cials implied that the rockets that hit them were fired from the Iraqi building. In Teheran, the official i
Pars news agency ’ reported that four people were excuted in the south-western Iranian oil town of Afwaz after being convicted of blowing up oil installations. The men were accused of sabotage, secessionist activity, taking people to Iraq for guerrilla training, and funding anti-Government saboteurs. Pars said the saboteurs were sent to the firing squad after confessing to the charges. Iran has consistently accused Bagdad of paying and arming Arab separatist guerrillas who have disrupted the oil industry in _ the key oil-producing province of Khuzestan. Iraq has frequently voiced support for the Arab population of the province, calling for the establishment of an autonomous government in what it calls Arabistan.
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Press, 19 April 1980, Page 8
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362Arafat strives to halt inter-Shi’ite battles Press, 19 April 1980, Page 8
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