Fresh bid to solve Lebanese crisis

Press, 2 August 1983, Page 10

Fresh bid to solve Lebanese crisis

NZPA-Reuter Beirut President Ronald Reagan’s new special envoy, Robert McFarlane, began attempt to resolve the Lebanese crisis yesterday amid a new flare-up of fighting between rival factions of the mainstream Palestinian guerrilla movement, Fatah.

Supporters of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and rebels led by Colonel Abu Musa traded artillery fire in eastern Lebanon yesterday shattering the first day of calm since clashes began on July 23, report local radio stations. The State-run Beirut radio said that shells were falling at a rate of 10 a minute around the strategic Bekaa Valley town,,i.of Shtoura. But in other ageas a cease-fire enforcecr“by

Syrian troops appeared to be holding. Mr McFarlane has flown to Beirut at the start of a Middle East tour with the declared aim of trying to revive America’s efforts to rid Lebanon of Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian forces.

He was expected to meet Lebanese officials yesterday to brief them on Washington’s latest ideas on overcoming the obstacles to a triple withdrawal. But Arab commentators have questioned how he can succeed where 10 months of American diplomacy have failed.

A key part of his tour will be a trip to Syria, which has rejected the May 17 Leban-ese-Israeli troop withdrawal accord as a basis for pulling its own Army out of north

and east Lebanon. President Hafez Assad of Syria lowered prospects for the success of Mr McFarlane’s mission when he again attacked American diplomacy in the Middle East.

“How can the United States be a just arbitrator between an Arab country and Israel while it has encouraged and supported Israeli aggression?” he asked in a message to his Army. In Beirut security forces came under fire yesterdays when they tried to stop armed men stealing a car in a mainly Muslim part of the capital. The gunmen belonged to a party militia, but it has not been identified. One policesergeant was woundea 1n the incident