Truce in Beirut lasts just three hours

Press, 21 February 1987, Page 10

Truce in Beirut lasts just three hours

By

DIANA ABDALLAH

of Reuters (through NZPA) Beirut Sporadic fighting flared again in west Beirut yesterday, breaking a Syriansponsored truce while leaders of Lebanon’s warring factions tried to hammer out a durable settlement in Damascus. The police said more than 150 people had been killed and at least 300 wounded in five days of tank, mortar and artillery battles for control of Beirut’s Muslim sector. Political sources said 7 Druse and Leftist allies had seized the advantage in the see-saw street battles, and held sway in central areas. > ■#.

But the Shi’ite Muslim Amal militia still clung to strongholds as a joint Syrian-Lebanese security force briefly succeeded in reducing the violence yesterday, particularly at the Amal-held 40-storey Murr Tower dominating the city. A three-hour lull, enforced by a Syrian-led security force and backed by local radios’ repeated calls for a new truce, was quickly followed by fresh skirmishes. Rival gunmen, in some places only metres apart, exchanged rocketpropelled- grenades, recoilless rifle shells and machine-gun fire at three flashpoints.. - Reuter correspondents saw two teenage girls, one

a brunette in jeans and white jacket, blazing away with Kalashnikov rifles from one leftist-held street corner. As explosions rocked deserted streets and streams of red tracer bullets arced through clouds of smoke from blazing apartment blocks, a housewife huddled in a corridor, shivering with fright and fatigue. "Please God, I want some sleep. Can’t they wait until tomorrow?” she pleaded. Flashes from exploding’; shells showed gunmen slumped in doorways and,, behind makeshift barricades, dozing fitfully in. spite of the rattle of gunfire and the sound of high-velocity rifle shots

from snipers stalking rooftops. In Damascus, “ two leaders of the Leftist alliance arrived for talks with Syrian officials; and their opponent Nabih Berri. ■< Walid Jumblatt, the 37-year-old Druze leader of the Progressive Socialist Party and George Hawi, head of Lebanon’s proSoviet Communist Party, .. are expected to discuss a possible new Syrianbrokered security plan for the Muslim sector. Hundreds of cease-tires have disintegrated in a hail of bullets since Lebanon’s - civil war erupted in 1975. Several were initiated by Syria, the main power-broker in the Conflict.