Artillery shakes Beirut

Press, 28 July 1989, Page 9

Artillery shakes Beirut

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Artillery duels rocked Lebanon in a new bout of bombardment which drove thousands of residents to a night of terror in underground shelters. Security sources said Syrian gunners pounded the country’s blockaded Christian enclave yesterday, killing three people and wounding 23. They said shells smashed into a shelter in Ain al-Remenhe area in east Beirut, killing a man and wounding ten. Christian artillerymen of the Army commander, Major-General Michel Aoun, retaliated by hammering Muslim West Beirut, Druze villages overlooking the capital, north Lebanon and the

eastern Bekaa valley. Muslim security sources said four people were killed in west Beirut and five were wounded. There was no word on casualties in other areas.

Many residents who had taken advantage of a two-day lull in the fighting were caught in the open by the hew fire storm. Residents reached by telephone in both sectors of the capital said their shelters shook to the sound of artillery shells knocking their apartment blocks. “Shells are slamming our building. We are feeling that the ceiling of our shelter would collapse at any minute,” said Mustapha, a resident in West Beirut.

Souad Haddad, who lives in Christian East Beirut, said shells were raining on residential areas. She and her children were hiding in the bathroom. Witnesses said a barracks of the Christian hardline Lebanese Forces (L.F.) was set ablaze when it was hit by Syrian shells in the area of Kiserwan north of Beirut. They said flames and the white and orange muzzle flashes of incoming and outgoing shells lit the night sky of Beirut — the only illumination in a city hit by a power cut. At least 460 people have died in shelling that has raged since mid-March, when General Aoun blockaded Muslim militia-

run ports in a bid to extend his authority beyond the Christian enclave.

On May 11 the Arab League mediated a fragile truce which was as good as buried last week when both sides resumed heavy barrages against each other’s sector. The heads of State of Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia have set up a committee to try to end Lebanon’s 14-year-old civil war.

Diplomats say General Aoun and the Syrian President, Hafez al-Assad, the main foreign power broker with 40,000 troops in Lebanon, both need to make concessions. But neither has shown any sign of backing down.