Secret caller claims credit for attack

Press, 14 March 1985, Page 6

Secret caller claims credit for attack

NZPA-AFP Beirut The Lebanese National Resistance Front yesterday claimed credit for a suicide commando attack in south Lebanon against Israeli troops. In a telephone call to a foreign news agency, a man claiming to speak for the front — a non-religious clandestine group that has taken credit for many antiIsrael attacks — said the group’s agent had attacked an Israeli convoy in a car, and set off an explosion that claimed manj' victims. He said that the agent, Wajdi Sayegh, was affiliated with the Syrian National Social Party and was born in 1961 in the Druse village of Charoun. Israeli military sources had said before the claim was made that a black Mercedes had attacked an Israeli military convoy travelling between Jezzine and Marjeyoun, and that one Israeli soldier had been injured. Lebanese witnesses and security sources said the attacker killed or wounded several Israeli soldiers

when his car hit a military vehicle. Israeli helicopters swooped over the area while Israeli troops set up road-blocks and combed the nearby fields as Lebanese guerrillas opened fire, the witnesses said. Five Lebanese were also killed near Rashidiyeh, south of Tyre, when their car, apparently heading for an Israeli target, exploded, the Israeli sources said. No Israelis were near the scene at the time, they said. Twelve Israeli soldiers were killed and 14 wounded by a car bomb near the Lebanese-Israeli border on Sunday. On Monday, Israeli forces killed at least 34 people after crossing their front lines to the Shi’ite Muslim village of Zrariyeh in the deadliest military move since Israel began harsh action against guerrillas last month. The Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Rabin, warned that the Israeli Army would strike anywhere at Shi’ite guerrillas. The United States on Tuesday vetoed a draft

resolution to the United Nations Security Council condemning Israeli measures against civilians in south Lebanon. Eleven council members backed it while Britain, Denmark and Australia abstained. A Lebanese Cabinet Minister, Dr Selim Hoss, said the veto contradicted America’s human rights policies elsewhere. “How can America prevent the censure of the destruction of homes, burning of orchards, killing of innocents and siege of villages on Lebanese soil while it condemns what it regards as the violation of human rights in other countries?” he said. American Administration officials said that they were watching to see if the veto would put Americans in Lebanon in danger. They said they had no plans to evacuate Americans from the area but the aircraft carrier Eisenhower was in the eastern Mediterranean, apparently in case a rescue became necessary.