Syrians accused of Beirut massacre

Press, 26 February 1987, Page 6

Syrians accused of Beirut massacre

NZPA-Reuter Beirut

Syrian troops, who are cracking down on west Beirut gunmen, killed at least 20 pro-Iranian Hizbollah militants yesterday after seizing one of their strongholds, militia sources said. The Hizbollah (Party of God) said up to 30 people may have been killed and accused the Syrians of a massacre.

■ The militia sources said troops were deploying in the Basta district when they came under fire. “The Syrians immediately went on alert and started to storm buildings in search of the armed men,” one source said.

“Gunfire was heard and shortly afterwards the bodies of at least 20 Hizbollah militiamen were seen carried out and dumped in a truck.”

Hizbollah said the Syrians had killed 20 to 30 people, adding that 18 bodies had been recovered so far. It said the victims were people who had taken refuge in a building after the Syrians

ordered them off the streets.

“The Syrians followed those innocent people to the inside of the (firstfloor) apartment and lined them up, ordered them to raise their hands and then opened fire at them.

“Then they carried the bodies to some military trucks where they dumped them and covered the corpses with vegetables to cover up the massacre,” Hizbollah said.

The police had no immediate word on the reported killings, which came after the Syrians occupied Hizbollah’s main west Beirut base in Basta and found its interior gutted by fire. The building was once said to have been used as a prison for some of the 26 foreigners missing, feared kidnapped, in Lebanon.

Hizbollah, which denies links with kidnappers, has other bases in Shi’ite suburbs where the Syrians have not deployed. The reported killings came; almost two weeks

after a Hizbollah-Syrian clash in the same area.

On that occasion, a joint Syrian-Lebanese patrol killed a Hizbillah member who had refused to surrender his gun. The patrol was then surrounded, beaten and some of its members had their heads shaved by about 200 Hizbollah militiamen.

All key militia strongholds in the Muslim sector are now in the hands of some 7000 Syrian troops who roared into Beirut on Sunday to quell street battles which had cost over 200 lives.

The street fighting had set the Shi’ite Amal militia against Druse and Communist Party forces. Hizbollah stayed neutral. In Vienna, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said it would try again to send supplies into the southern Beirut shantytowns today after Amal militiamen turned four agency food trucks away from the Palestinian Bourj el-Brajneh refugee camp yesterday.