Israeli Planes Retaliate for 2 Car Bombs

Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships rocketed three Palestinian guerrilla bases near Tripoli today, a day after two suicide car-bomb attacks claimed 19 lives in Israel’s security zone in south Lebanon.

Hospitals in Tripoli listed 15 people brought to their morgues by late afternoon. They said 29 others were wounded and hospitalized.

The dead included six children aged between 8 and 12 and an 18-year-old woman. Hospital officials and police said most of the victims were civilians.

Two Israeli fighter-bombers scored at least three direct hits with rockets on the headquarters of Palestinian dissident Col. Saeed Moussa, also known as Abu Moussa, in the Nahr al-Bared camp, reporters on the scene said.

The reporters said the jets hit a pipeline carrying crude oil from Iraq, sending flames and a huge pillar of black smoke into the air.

Two Bases in Area

Israeli military sources in Tel Aviv, who spoke on condition they not be identified, said the guerrillas from Moussa’s faction have two bases in the sprawling complex six miles northeast of Tripoli, 50 miles north of Beirut.

Moussa’s Syrian-backed faction has broken away from Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Backed by helicopter gunships to suppress anti-aircraft fire, the jets also hit the Baddawi camp three miles northeast of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city.

According to the Israeli military sources, Baddawi was used by guerrillas from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a small, Syrian-backed Palestinian faction led by former Syrian army Capt. Ahmed Jebril.

Anti-Aircraft Missiles

Reporters on the scene said there was little anti-aircraft fire. Several surface-to-air missiles were fired, but none scored any hits.

It was the seventh Israeli air strike in Lebanon this year and the first since April 17, when Israeli planes attacked a Palestinian base near Barr Elias in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

Israel had been widely expected to keep its vow to retaliate for guerrilla attacks after Tuesday’s suicide bombings in its security zone in south Lebanon in which 19 people were killed. (Story, Page 15.)

Factional violence continued in Lebanon early today as rival militias battled with mortars, multi-barreled rocket launchers and heavy machine guns in Tripoli, and in the capital. Police said seven people were killed and 53 wounded.