South Lebanon Blast Kills 2 Shia Leaders, 10 Others

An explosion ripped through a village mosque in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 12 people, including two Shia Muslim guerrilla chieftains, according to United Nations and Lebanese militia officials.

U.N. spokesman Timor Goksel said the count stood at 12 dead and 25 wounded after French U.N. troops and rescue workers completed a 10-hour search of the rubble. Other sources reported higher casualty figures.

Nabih Berri, leader of Amal, the main Shia Muslim militia, and also Cabinet minister for southern Lebanon, blamed Israel for the blast in the village of Maarake, saying soldiers planted “a bomb in the (mosque’s) library before they left the village” after a weekend search operation.

In a written statement, Israel said it “flatly denies” involvement and asserted that no Israeli soldiers were in Maarake on Monday.

The explosion--apparently caused by an anti-personnel bomb loaded with ball bearings--wrecked the top floor and collapsed the roof of a two-story religious center during a meeting presided over by Mohammed Saad, Amal’s commander in southern Lebanon, and Khalil Jaradi, the Amal commander in the port of Tyre. Both were killed, Berri said.

“Half of the south has been martyred--Mohammed Saad and Khalil Jaradi, together with others beside them,” Berri told reporters.

A military observer in the south said: “Saad was most important because he coordinated the whole resistance in the Tyre area. His death is worth 200 village raids.”

It was not immediately known what caused the blast at the mosque. Villagers said a bomb went off during a meeting held to discuss how to distribute relief supplies in the village. Among the other dead were Dr. Khalil Atwi, a Tyre physician, and Ahmed Rouhiyeh, head of the government-run social relief agency in Tyre.

“Reports we have received from the scene indicate that the building was dynamited,” a civil defense source said. “We do not think a car bomb was involved.”

As watching residents wept and screamed, “Allahu akbar!” (God is great), workers collected bodies and removed the wounded.

Lebanese civil defense officials confirmed the U.N. figure of 12 dead but reported 65 injured. The Lebanese police reported 15 dead and 30 wounded, and Amal put the toll at 15 dead and 50 wounded.

“We know the solution,” said an injured Amal militiaman who was flown with three other casualties to Beirut’s American University Hospital. “It is either martyrdom, death or being wounded. We will not stop.”

Frederic Neema, a photographer for the British news service Reuters, said he saw dozens of ball bearings from the bomb in the building’s wreckage.

Center of Resistance

Maarake, eight miles east of the southern port of Tyre, has been a center of Shia resistance to Israel’s occupation of the south. Israeli forces raided the village Saturday, leaving early Sunday after a 24-hour search operation.

Berri and other Amal leaders warned over the weekend that further Israeli raids on Shia villages would bring retaliation on settlements across the border in northern Israel.

Israeli troops Sunday began the second stage of their three-phase withdrawal from Lebanon. The Israeli government has said its forces will abandon their confrontation line with the Syrian army in the east but will remain at present in southern Lebanon, where Israeli soldiers are targets of almost daily attacks by Shia Muslim guerrillas.

Israel, which invaded Lebanon in June, 1982, to crush the Palestine Liberation Organization, ended the first phase of the occupation by withdrawing from the Sidon area Feb. 16.

‘Iron Fist’ Policy

Since then, Israel has used what it calls an “iron fist” policy to curb guerrilla attacks in the south.

In Beirut, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel called in diplomatic envoys of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China to discuss the explosion at the mosque. Premier Rashid Karami said Gemayel asked the representatives of the five permanent member nations of the U.N. Security Council to support a complaint lodged by Lebanon last week about the conduct of the Israeli occupation.