Peace-keepers on guard

Press, 18 March 1983, Page 8

Peace-keepers on guard

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Sentries of the four-nation peace force in Beirut reinforced their sandbag ramparts yesterday as the Lebanese Army scoured the ’City’s southern slums for the gunmen who wounded 14 Italian and American soldiers on Wednesday. Assailants armed with rifle-launched grenades and automatic weapons injured nine. Italians, three of'them

seriously, and five United States Marines suffered minor wounds from a grenade lobbed at them. It was the most serious spate of attacks so far on the 5000-strong United States-French-Italian-Brit-ish force which is helping the Lebanese Army restore control over the capital after eight years of anarchy and war.

Despite domestic prob-

lems the four governments might face if their men were subjected to constant attacks, American and Italian officers said that they planned to keep up their patrols.

The Lebanese Army commander General Ibrahim Tannous, reported to President Amin Gemayel yesterday that 350 people had been picked up for questioning after the attacks in the

crumbling Ouzai and Bourj el-Brajneh suburbs, and 20 were still being held.

But there were no real clues to who might have made the attacks, or why.

Lebanon's State-run national news agency quoted a Government source as saying that the attacks had suited Israel’s argument that the Lebanese Army was incapable of carrying out security tasks.