6 Die, 30 Hurt as Beirut Crisis Worsens

Lebanese Christian and Muslim militias dueled with tanks, mortars and grenades along Beirut’s dividing line Sunday, giving residential districts the worst shelling since the latest wave of sectarian fighting began eight days ago.

Police said six people were killed and 30 wounded in fighting that raged through the night and into Sunday along the so-called Green Line, between Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut.

The new casualties raised the overall toll in Beirut fighting to 29 killed and 183 wounded since last Sunday.

Moves were reported to reconvene the factionally divided Cabinet, but there was no immediate formula to halt the lastest spasm of fighting.

Shia Muslim fighters and their Druze allies fired barrages from jeep-mounted mortars and multi-barreled rocket launchers into Christian residential areas east of the Green Line.

Christian militiamen and Christian units of the Lebanese army responded with tank and rocket-propelled grenade fire.

All six crossings between predominantly Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut were closed.

The heaviest fighting was reported around the Museum Crossing in the middle of the city. Military sources said the fighting there was triggered when Muslim fighters tried to advance from their entrenched positions toward Lebanese army barricades.

The Barbir Hospital on the Muslim side of the Museum Crossing was struck by rockets for the second straight day.

Plea for Hospital

After moving about 50 patients to safer parts of the building or sending them home, Dr. Nassid Barbir, the director of the hospital, issued a plea to the militias to save his battered hospital.

“I would like to remind the civil war fighters that this is a hospital, not a barracks or a garrison. I call on the gunmen here to change their positions and on the other side to stop firing in this direction,” Barbir said.

State-run Beirut radio said President Amin Gemayel has scheduled a meeting for today of a six-man military council to find ways to halt the deteriorating situation.

Meanwhile, it was reported that armed squatters have moved into the homes of the Rev. Benjamin Weir and Peter Kilburn, two of five Americans who were kidnaped in West Beirut and are still missing.

Two militias have reportedly been fighting for two weeks over which of them should take over Kilburn’s apartment in West Beirut. Kilburn, a librarian at the American University of Beirut, disappeared last December.

“Between them, they’ve stolen almost everything he has. Only his books are left,” a colleague of Kilburn said.

Weir is a Presbyterian minister who was kidnaped last May. A neighbor of his said that armed militiamen had begun using the missing clergyman’s apartment as a base 10 days ago.

“They came and took it over while his wife was in America seeing (Secretary of State George P.) Shultz,” the neighbor said. “They’ve promised to return it (the apartment) when she comes back. We’ll see.”