Israeli fighters shoot down Syrian MiG

Press, 26 August 1980, Page 8

Israeli fighters shoot down Syrian MiG

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Israeli jets yesterday shot down a Syrian Air Force MiG fighter in the sixth successive day of military action in south Lebanon as a Palestinian leader said Israel was planning a big new atA military spokesman _ in Damascus said the Syrian plane was lost in a dogfight with Israeli fighters, intercepted while strafing Palestinian positions and refugee camps in the south. The pilot bailed out and landed safely. The > MiG crashed in flames near the Lebanese village of Jban 25km north of the Israeli border. The Syrian spokesman said an Israeli plane was hit in the dogfight, • which lasted several minutes. The'air battle followed the largest Israeli strike- into south Lebanon for two. yeare last week. Hundreds of Israeli troops, backed by helicopters, planes, and an artillery barrage, attacked Palestinian military positions and destroyed houses. In a magazine interview published in Beirut yesterday, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s political chief, Farouk Kaddoumi, said there were clear indications that Israel planned a bjg new attack on south Lebanon. -Mr Kaddoumi, head of the P.L.O.’s political department, told the English-language Beirut ■ weekly, “Monday Morning”: “The . continued

Israeli provocations, ■■ especially the attacks on .south Lebanon, are a clear indication that Israel is planning a major attack on the south.” He added: "This, I believe, will lead to another war in the Middle East.” The Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) wanted to realise Israel’s “great dream” of annexing south • Lebanon before he died, the P.L.O. leader said. His comments followed five days of artillery and aerial bombardment in south Lebanon. Yesterday, reports from the. south indicated sporadic shelling by Israeli and Rightist Lebanese gunners.

Palestinian guerrillas, in an apparent bid. to show that attacks on bases in the south would not stop their strikes inside Israeli-occu-pied territories, on i Sunday planted ?two bombs on the outskirts of Jerusalem. One person was killed and several people were wounded in the blasts.

Israeli planes fly regular missions over south Lebanon, : but they are rarely intercepted by the Syrians. Last year Israeli jets shot down a total of nine Syrian MiGs. over the south in two dogfights. The Syrians also downed an unpiloted Israeli spy plane north of Damascus.

In Syria, ground and air forces carried out what officials described as routine military exercises using live ammunition. ' r .

The Syrian Defence Minis-

ter (Mr Mustafa Tlas) urged his troops to be. ready “for the Arabs’ impending battle against the Zionist enemy to liberate occupied Arab territories and recover , usurped rights.” -. . . . , . , . The Palestinian commando chief, Yasser Arafat, at the week-end accused the United States of having given Israel a green light to launch last Tuesday’s big attack bn guerrilla targets in south Lebanon.

In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the chairman of the European Economic Community’s Council of Ministers, on a fact-finding mission for the E.E.C., said that the Saudis wanted Europe to assume a direct role in the Middle East peace process. . ) Gaston Thorn at the weekend conferred with the Saudi Crown Prince Fahd and the Foreign . Minister : (Prince Saud Faisal), and then told reporters: “We want to;, get involved-.in peace. We want to find : a solution, for lasting peace. But we want to be in the middle.” For his part; the Egyptian President (Mr Anwar Sadat) has called on both sides in the Palestinian autonomy dispute, to stop public wrangling and adopt quiet diplomacy pending a Camp David-style summit meeting on the issue. ;“We all need ... a break for thought and consideration. The two sides have reached a dead:end and we have dug in our positions,” Mr Sadat told the Israeli newspaper, “Maariv.”'