Rebels’ guns silenced

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 6

Rebels’ guns silenced

NZPA-Reuter Beirut United States Navy vessels, steaming closer to Beirut’s shore, shelled gun positions in the hills above the capital yesterday for the third day running, reports Radio Beirut. The radio said that one or more naval vessels fired at around 11.30 p.m. (9.30 a.m. yesterday New Zealand time), and silenced antiGovernment gun positions with precision shelling.

The naval shelling appeared to come from well south of Beirut. But later a further 15 deafening rounds were heard over the city centre, clearly from a vessel just off the northern shore of west Beirut.

The battleship U.S.S. New Jersey has now entered the

Mediterranean to join other vessels of the Sixth Fleet.

The 58,000 ton New Jersey has nine 16in guns capable of hurling 1230 kg shells 35km.

The New Jersey, recently taken out of mothballs and modernised, arrived from Central America, where it had been on exercises as part of a United States show of muscle to reflect concern over the alleged spread of Leftist influence there.

Shells were also landing on the edge of Beirut and in many hillside areas, and it was difficult to distinguish who was firing on whom.

Beirut streets, deserted and pitch-black due to power cuts and a military curfew, were lit by flashes

of artillery fire from just east and south-east of the city. Shells fell on the hillside districts of Yarzeh and Baabda. Baabda is the site of the Presidential Palace and Yarzeh the site of the American Ambassador’s residence and the Defence Ministry, where a few United States Army officers are based.

The Navy had. cited danger to American lives for some of its shell-fire on previous days. On Monday, it fired more than 300 shells on antiGovernment positions in support of the Lebanese Army at the key ridge town of Souk el-Gharb, and said that the fall of the town would endanger United States Marines and diplo-

mats in Beirut. Lebanon’s official news media reported that President Amin Gemayel had made a surprise and dangerous visit to the strategic frontline town to boost the morale of his troops. Later, however, the town and other Army positions came under concentrated artillery attacks from antiGovernment forces. Flares, bursts of flame from artillery guns and machine-gun tracer fire could be clearly seen from central Beirut

The Army also fought a limited battle, mostly with rifles, in the Shi’ite Muslim Beirut suburb of Tayyouneh yesterday. The Army used “suitable weapons” to silence the gunmen, whom it did not identify.