Battle for city rages in wake of Israeli pull-out

Press, 6 September 1983, Page 8

Battle for city rages in wake of Israeli pull-out

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Artillery and mortar battles raged yesterday in the hills around Beirut, 24 hours after Israeli occupation troops began a pull-out to southern Lebanon.

The regular boom of mortars or shells could be heard from central Beirut towards midnight (local time), apparently from battles between Christian and Druse militias.

But the Lebanese Army said eariler yesterday that it had captured the strategic Khalde Junction, just south of Beirut airport, from Druse militiamen after fierce fighting in close combat. United States Marines at their base at Beirut airport said that the Lebanese Army was still firing heavy artillery, apparently at Druse positions. The militiamen, followers of the pro-Syrian opposition leader, Walid Jumblatt, had moved to take the Khalde area after Israeli troops pulled out as part of their long-announced redeployment to southern Lebanon on Sunday.

State and other radio reports indicated that most of yesterday’s fighting had been by well-armed Druse militiamen trying to take positions vacated by the Israelis around Beirut.

State-run Beirut radio reported that several shells had hit the western runway of Beirut airport. Later, the Christian Falangist radio reported that shells were landing on the coast north of Beirut, in mainly Christian areas, at the rate of one every 30 seconds. Agence France-Press reported heavy fighting had continued past dawn (local time) between Lebanese troops and the Druse. Thick columns of smoke

were rising from the area around the airport and at Khalde.

Farther south, shelling was reported around Choueifat and Aramoun, two suburban areas held by the Druse.

The Associated Press said that the United States Marines had fired mortars at militia positions at dawn (last evening, New Zealand time).

A Marine spokesman, Major Robert Jordan, said that the Americans had fired a five-minute barrage of high-explosive shells from 81mm mortars at positions that had fired into the Marine zone at Beirut’s airport. The American Middle East envoy, Robert McFarlane, was due in Beirut today to try to help end the battles. The Lebanese President, Mr Amin Gemayel, held crisis meetings throughout yesterday with Ministers and military chiefs, and with a McFarlane aide, Richard Fairbanks.

The Lebanese Army has said that it will move into the mainly Druse Chouf mountains to replace the Israelis, who delayed their withdrawal for more than two weeks at the behest of the United States and Lebanese governments. Mr Jumblatt has said that his men will attack if the Army moves in without reaching an agreement with them. The latest fighting comes after a week of some of the worst street fighting and shelling ever seen in Beirut. Mr Gemayel, a Christian, had invited factional leaders to meet him for talks on Lebanon’s future, but Mr Jumblatt and other key figures have refused unless he first meets their demands.

These include greater

rights for Druse and Shi’ite Muslims, the disbanding of Christian militias, and the scrapping of an Israeli withdrawal agreement which has never been implemented.

Earlier, Israeli Air Force planes attacked a column of tanks that had started moving from mountainous Syrian-held territory towards Beirut after the Israeli Army began its withdrawal. Senior Lebanese sources said that the Israeli jets had swooped in on the tanks—thought to be either Syrian or used by pro-Syrian Druse militiamen—near the township of Sofar. The tanks had rumbled west towards Beirut along the main Damascus highway soon after the Israelis abandoned their frontline mountain position as part of the redeployment to a more secure defence line farther south along the Awali River, the sources said. Neither the Lebanese sources nor an Israeli Army spokesman in Tel Aviv, who confirmed three Israeli missions in the area against unspecified tanks, gave the outcome of the air strikes. Israel decided to evacuate the Chouf, the Beirut outskirts, and its positions on the Beirut-Damascus road to cut Army casualties and the huge cost of occupying Lebanon. A total of 517 Israelis were killed and some 3000 wounded since the start of last year’s invasion of Lebanon, dozens of them in the area evacuated on Sunday. Despite the withdrawal about half a million Lebanese will still remain under Israeli control in an occupied area of about 2800 sq km. Israel has said that it will not vacate this area until Syrian troops also agree to leave the country.