Syrian troops march back into Beirut

Press, 23 February 1987, Page 10

Syrian troops march back into Beirut

A Syrian reconnaissance patrol reached the southern gateway to Beirut yesterday as the Lebanese President, Amid Gemayel, and other Christian leaders denounced military intervention by Damascus.

Four carloads of Syrian officers and soldiers sped ahead of a reinforced mechanised brigade, and were greeted by crowds of mainly Shi’ite Muslims at Khalde intersection.

In mainly Muslim west Beirut, scourged by six days of street-to-street battles between the Shi’ite Amal militia and Leftists, most residents stayed indoors and waited for Syrian tanks massed in mountains south-east of the divided city. The advance party’s arrival marked a renewed presence in Beirut by Syria, whose troops had pulled out of the Lebanese capital in the aftermath of the 1982 Israeli invasion.

The present move followed a formal request from Lebanon’s Muslim leaders for assistance in implementing a ceasefire in the western sector of Beirut. But Christian leaders based in east Beirut, most notably Mr Gemayel, criticised the Muslim leaders’ appeal as unlawful and dubbed Syria’s response unacceptable. Mr Gemayel, a Maronite Christian, said he "appreciated the urgency of the tragic human conditions that led some responsible leaders to turn directly to Syria for help ... but had to put on record that this unilateral step is an unconstitutional act”

Mr Samir Geagea, chief of the hard-line Christian “Lebanese Forces” militia and a critic of Syria’s role in Lebanon, said intervention was unacceptable and would eventually lead to further violence. Christian forces are engaged in a protracted war against Muslim and Leftist organisations, but both

sides have at one time or anomer welcomed Syrian military action in Lebanon. The Muslims and secular Left-wing groups form a loose, Syrian-backed coalition against the Christian minority, but they have . frequently fought among themselves. Beirut police say more than 200 people have died over the last week in clashes where Amal has been pitted against Leftists, including the Druseled Progressive Socialist Party and Lebanon’s proSoviet Communist Party.

Links between Mr Gemayel and the Syrian President, Hafez Al-Assad, plunged to a new low in January last year when the Christian leader refused to support a Damascus-brokered plan to end civil war by stripping Christian prerogatives and giving Muslims more say in Lebanon’s precarious government. Military observers described Syria’s gradual reentry to Beirut as a textbook operation, designed to secure the route through Druse-held mountains and aimed at keeping as low a profile as possible once established in Beirut’s-Muslim area. Druse radio said Israeli warplanes flew over the central Lebanon mountains on Saturday where Syrian troops were gathered. Political sources said earlier that up to 4000 troops equipped with tanks and armoured personnel carriers were preparing to enter west Beirut.

Damascus State-run radio said yesterday: “Syria has no ambitions in Lebanon, nor has it the intention of replacing the Lebanese in handling their own affairs.”

War-weary Beirutis viewed the Syrian move with mixed feelings. Some recalled the failure of the Syrian-led Arab Deterrent Force to end sectarian conflict in 1976.