2 Car Bombs Kill 28, Wound 68 in W. Beirut : Attacks Seen as Retaliation for Blasts That Left 65 Dead in Christian Sector; City Called ‘Inferno’

Two car bombs ripped through residential areas of Muslim West Beirut on Monday, killing at least 28 people and wounding at least 68 in what many believe was revenge for two bombings in Christian areas of the divided capital last week.

“Beirut is turning into an inferno,” said state-run television. And the Muslim radio station Voice of the Nation declared, “We have a car-bomb war on our hands now.”

The attacks came days after two bombings that killed at least 65 people in Christian East Beirut. Leaders of the Lebanese Forces, the dominant Christian militia, had blamed Muslims for those attacks and vowed to retaliate.

A man claiming to represent a hitherto-unknown group called “Black Brigades” claimed responsibility for the two bombings Monday in a call to a Western news agency.

Vow of Vengeance

“We assert that we shall confront the war of extermination with a counterextermination war and proclaim our determination to avenge all the Christians killed, slaughtered and displaced in this country,” said the caller, who also warned that no one would live in peace in the capital if Christians could not.

But Premier Rashid Karami, a Sunni Muslim, and Shia Muslim leader Nabih Berri blamed the attacks ultimately on Israel. Berri said Christian agents of Israel were responsible, and Karami said Israel has the most to gain by shaking Lebanese “national unity.”

The first bomb exploded in the middle-class area of Karrakol el Druze at 12:05 p.m. near a popular sandwich bar. It killed 24 people, including several children, and wounded 61, security and hospital sources said.

About 30 minutes later, an estimated 50 pounds of plastic explosive hidden in a Toyota sedan detonated outside a mosque in Ghobeireh, a Shia slum district, killing four people and wounding seven, security sources said. Residents said worshipers had left the mosque after midday prayers only 15 minutes before the blast.

The latest death toll brought to 93 the number of people killed in the four car bombings since Wednesday.

Hidden in Peugeot

Monday’s first bomb--estimated by a police explosives expert at about 80 pounds of liquid hexogen, which he described as being four times stronger than TNT--was hidden in a green Peugeot sedan parked outside an eight-story apartment building. The blast sent shrapnel slicing through the street, tossed cars in the air and shattered concrete balconies.

Mohammed Bindak, who saw the explosion, said a blond man in blue jeans and a white shirt parked a Peugeot sedan outside a flower shop next to the sandwich bar, bought a sandwich and fled moments before the car exploded.

The bomb gutted shops, sparked a fire that engulfed the first three floors of the apartment building and touched off a smaller blaze in a 10-story building directly across the street. “I saw eight burned bodies in cars,” a Lebanese reporter said.

Passers-by ripped open mangled car doors to rescue people trapped inside as Muslim militiamen fired their weapons into the air in anger.

Civil defense workers dragged wounded men, women and children out of the smoke-filled buildings, and a yellow bulldozer pushed 20 wrecked cars out of the way to clear a path for ambulances.

“How could they do it? How could they do it?” screamed a housewife as she ran from the blazing wreckage caused by one of the bombs.

Enraged by the carnage, one Shia militiaman, Abu Mehdi, bitterly blamed Christian forces and swore revenge.

“Our reply will be much more violent,” he declared. “If they want to play the game of death, we know how to play, too.”

A man driving a third car packed with explosives was arrested outside a West Beirut cinema Monday afternoon and was being interrogated, authorities said.

Shelling Across Green Line

Minutes after the blasts, shelling erupted between Christian and Muslim militiamen on the so-called Green Line, the no man’s land that divides the capital’s eastern and western sectors. There were no immediate reports of casualties, but all six roads between east and west were closed.

Hours later, Christian gunners bombarded Beirut’s southern suburbs with rockets and artillery and Muslim artillerymen shelled parts of East Beirut in reply, security sources said. At least one person was killed and seven wounded in the early stages of the clashes.

Christian Voice of Lebanon radio said that at one stage, rockets were falling at the rate of 30 a minute on residential areas of East Beirut.

Fierce fighting with rockets, tanks and artillery was also reported between Druze militiamen and Lebanese army troops in the Shouf Mountains overlooking Beirut. Two cease-fire calls went unheeded, security sources said.

Increase in Security

Christian militiamen Monday increased security in East Beirut following a car bomb blast at a supermarket Saturday that killed at least 50 people and wounded at least 100. Four days earlier, 15 people died in a car bombing in the eastern sector.

No group has claimed responsibility for the East Beirut bombings, which have drawn condemnation from many Muslim leaders, including Berri.

Retaliating for the West Beirut bombings, Muslim gunmen on Monday stopped a busload of Christian restaurant workers and seized 24, the state-owned Beirut radio said.

After more than four hours in captivity, the Christians were freed unharmed and taken to the home of Berri, who as head of the Amal militia had secured their release, the broadcast said.

Other Lebanon developments Monday:

--Unidentified gunmen kidnaped a senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross in southern Lebanon as he drove from the city of Sidon to the port of Tyre, security sources said.

According to the sources, Stefan Jaquemet, a Swiss who heads the Red Cross office in Sidon, was stopped by the gunmen as he was driving along the coastal road southward from Sidon, 24 miles south of Beirut.

--Syria, the dominant foreign power in Lebanon, resumed airline flights to Lebanon after 22 years, the beginning of a planned revival of weekly traffic between Beirut and Damascus by the countries’ national airlines.

A Syrian Arab Airlines delegation arrived at Beirut International Airport on Monday morning aboard a Syrian Boeing 727 to be greeted by officials of Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines.

The flight was the first by a Syrian airline since 1963. Middle East Airlines suspended its flights to Damascus in 1977.

--Gunfire killed one person and wounded three in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli amid tension between pro-Syrian militiamen of the Arab Democratic Party and anti-Syrian Sunni Muslim fundamentalists of the Tawhid movement, security sources reported.