Car Bombing in Tripoli--35 Killed

A car bomb blew up in Tripoli today, killing 35 people in the fourth such attack in Lebanon in four days. In the Beirut area, 40 people died in the fiercest artillery and rocket salvoes in six months.

In the northern port of Tripoli, assailants hurled a stick of dynamite from a speeding car into Sadoun square, and passers-by rushed to the scene of the blast to render aid.

About three minutes later, a car bomb exploded 150 yards away, demolishing a seven-story building, killing 35 people and wounding 85, police said.

It was the fifth car bombing in Lebanon’s major cities in a week. Altogether, 134 people have been killed and more than 300 wounded in what a Muslim radio station has dubbed “the war of the car bombs.”

Fighting Escalates

The rash of bombings has been accompanied by escalated fighting among the religious and ethnic groups carrying on Lebanon’s 10-year-old civil war.

A previously unknown group, the Revolutionary Christians of the Cedars, claimed that it was behind the Tripoli blast and two car bombings in mostly Muslim West Beirut on Monday that killed 29 people and wounded 82 others. (Earlier story, Page 8.)

An anonymous caller told a Western news agency in Beirut: “We want to assure the whole world that no Muslim fundamentalist will continue to live on Lebanese soil.” He spoke in Arabic-accented French.

Another previously unknown group, the Black Brigades, had also claimed the West Beirut bombings. That group said the bombings were in retaliation for two recent car bombings in Christian East Beirut that killed 70 people.

220 Pounds of TNT

Police said today’s car bomb in Tripoli, estimated to contain 220 pounds of TNT, caused all the casualties. Earlier eyewitness reports mistakenly identified the dynamite blast as another car bomb.

Fifteen of the bodies dug out from the rubble of the seven-story building were charred beyond recognition, witnesses reported. Nine other high-rises were damaged and more than 30 cars set on fire, witnesses reported by telephone from Tripoli.

In Beirut, Christian units of the Lebanese army and Christian militiamen used U.S.-built M-48 tanks and 155-millimeter howitzers to pound the western part of the city and its Shia-populated southern suburbs during the night, police said.

Rocket Launchers Fired

Druze and Shia Muslim gunners retaliated with barrages from multi-barreled rocket launchers.