P.L.O. mutineers seize supply dump

Press, 30 May 1983, Page 8

P.L.O. mutineers seize supply dump

NZPA-Reuter Damascus A three-week-old mutiny against, the leadership of the Palestinian guerrilla chief, Yasser Arafat, turned violent at the week-end when three people were reported wounded as rebels stormed a guerrilla supply dump at Damascus. P.L.O. sources said that the dissidents had attacked and seized the Syrianguarded supply depots on the northern outskirts of Damascus. It was the first bloodshed since five officers of Mr Arafat’s own Fatah commando group in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley refused to obey his orders, and is seen in Damascus as a serious escalation of the dispute. The rebels, who want Mr Arafat to change his military appointments and the P.L,O. to take a more militant political line, said that they had been joined by six more Fatah men. Mr Arafat has ordered supplies to be cut off to the dissidents, but the new rebel recruits — five officers in the supply corps and an engineer — have put their supply bases under rebel control and said that they would supply all the guerrillas in Fatah, the biggest P.L.O. commando group.

Two top P.L.O. officials had held talks with the Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Abdel-Halim Khaddam, early yesterday to discuss the new crisis, P.L.O. sources said. The organisation’s news agency, Wafa, in its report of the incident, said: “External armed elements supported by certain organs this afternoon occupied some administrative centres of the Fatah movement in Damascus.” It did not identify the attackers or spell out which “organs” were behind the occupation.

Mr Arafat has blamed Libya for financing and spurring the strife. The rebels, whose base is in Syrian-controlled parts of Lebanon, also appear able to move freely inside Syria. The escalation of the conflict came as Arafat supporters appeared confident that it could be settled peacefully through diplomacy among the eight factions that make up the P.L.O. There was also speculation among Palestinian sources yesterday that a P.L.O. delegation due in Moscow this week would ask the Kremlin to persuade its ally, Syria, to support Mr Arafat against the rebels. Wafa said that a Fatah delegation had been invited by the Soviet Union to “strengthen relations between Fatah and the Soviet Union at a time of increasing American-Zionist conspiracy.” It will be led by a staunch Arafat supporter, Salah Khalaf, known in the movement as Abu Iyad. The week-end’s attack was immediately condemned by the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is generally critical of Mr Arafat’s exploration of peaceful ways to solve the Middle East crisis.