4 Men Loyal to Arafat Killed in South Lebanon

The bullet-riddled bodies of four men loyal to Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat were found Friday, raising fears of new factional warfare in the southern Lebanese port.

Police said the bodies were discovered in an olive grove 500 yards from the Ein el Hilwa refugee camp on the outskirts of Sidon, 25 miles south of Beirut.

After the corpses were found, Beirut radio reported, Palestinian guerrillas appeared in force near Ein el Hilwa and another camp, Miye ou Miye, where about 22,000 Palestinian guerrillas and refugees live. Fighters set up checkpoints on approach roads.

Beirut radio said one of the victims had worked for the Red Crescent, the Palestinian equivalent of the Red Cross.

Police said the men were killed by shots fired from pistols fitted with silencers. The assailants stuffed two of the bodies into the trunk of an abandoned automobile; the other two lay spread-eagled near the car. No group immediately took responsibility for the killings.

Arafat’s men were slain after Shia Muslim leaders renewed charges a few days ago that the PLO is trying to rebuild a power base in southern Lebanon. It warned of new violence similar to the June refugee “camps war” in Beirut, between Palestinians and Shia forces. More than 600 people were killed before a cease-fire was arranged.

After the bodies were discovered Friday, committees from the two Palestinian camps near Sidon met with Lebanese politicians at the home of a Muslim legislator, Nazih Bizri. He is one of those opposed to a return of Arafat’s Fatah faction, which the Syrian-backed Palestinians and Shia militias have agreed to prevent from re-establishing itself as an effective force in the city and the Palestinian camps.

In Saudi Arabia on Friday, Arafat was quoted as confirming that Fatah is again placing people and weapons in southern Lebanon. “We have the right after Sabra and Chatilla and other genocides to help our people protect themselves,” he said in a newspaper interview.