Beirut Fire Resumes After 15-Minute Truce; 11 Killed

Christian and Muslim gunners honored a Syrian-backed cease-fire for 15 minutes Thursday, then resumed blasting one another with artillery and rockets before putting down their weapons again at nightfall.

Eleven people were killed and 32 wounded, officials said.

Premier Rashid Karami’s Cabinet met for the first time in four months in an effort to end a crisis that has seen five car bombings and artillery exchanges that have killed 287 people and wounded 924 others in 12 days.

The Cabinet--meeting without Shia Muslim leader Nabih Berri and Druze warlord Walid Jumblatt, who have refused to attend meetings for more than a year--urged Syria to deploy military observers in the lawless capital to supervise an end to 10 years of civil war.

Cease-Fire Agreement

A militia-army security committee, meeting in the Bekaa Valley with the head of Syrian military intelligence, agreed on a 1 p.m. cease-fire after a four-day barrage in the battered capital.

In the hours before the pact was accepted by the militia chiefs, at least 11 people were killed and 32 wounded in artillery and rifle fire exchanged between Christians and Muslims in and around Beirut, police said.

But hours after the cease-fire deadline, scores of shells still poured into residential areas of both Christian East Beirut and the mostly Muslim West, the airport and the city’s only fuel storage tanks.

The barrage ignited a blaze in an oil storage tank that threatened several others before it was extinguished, authorities said.

Lasted Just 15 Minutes

Military sources said the cease-fire was only 15 minutes old before fighting resumed.

Shells exploded on runways at Beirut International Airport, focal point of the TWA hijacking in June in which 39 Americans were held for 16 days by Muslim gunmen. The airport was closed Wednesday after two planes were set ablaze by shells.

Later, at dusk, a fragile calm settled over most of the city, with the heavy guns silent and only scattered clashes reported on the Green Line, the no man’s land that divides Christian and Muslim sectors of the city.