Tunis Assails U.S. Approval of Raid : Sees a Possible Role in Israel’s ‘Cowardly’ Strike

President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia summoned the U.S. ambassador to the presidential palace in Carthage on Wednesday and denounced the United States for approving and possibly participating in what he called “cowardly Israeli aggression” against Tunisia.

The vehemence of the rebuke by the president reflected a widespread feeling here that the precision of the Israeli bombing of the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in a southern suburb of Tunis on Tuesday morning could not have been accomplished without U.S. help.

Israelis Accuse Force 17

All morning newspapers in Tunis carried prominent reports of President Reagan’s comments that the Israeli raid was a justifiable act of retaliation for the murder last week of three Israeli citizens aboard a yacht in Cyprus. The Israeli government has accused Force 17, an elite bodyguard unit that protects PLO chief Yasser Arafat, of carrying out the killings. The PLO has denied responsibility.

Arafat told reporters Wednesday that it was clear from U.S. statements that the Israeli attack was “an Israeli-American ambush against me.” Arafat had just returned to Tunis from Morocco when the attack occurred but was not injured, he said, because he was out jogging.

Bourguiba, who is regarded as a moderate in the Arab world, told U.S. Ambassador Peter Sebastien that he was especially concerned about Reagan’s remarks. Bourguiba expressed “his profound regret and great astonishment at the American position on the cowardly Israeli aggression,” according to an official communique.

To underscore the solemnity of the moment, the president was flanked by Premier Mohamed Mzali; his son and adviser, Habib Bourguiba Jr., and Mahmoud Mestiri, secretary of state for external affairs

Bourguiba also expressed “his concern and worry about the role that the United States could have played in the operation,” the communique said, although it did not indicate whether the president had set down in detail the kind of acts that he believed the U.S. government may have committed.

The president, according to the communique, then “underlined with force and insistence the necessity for the United States to reconsider its negative and unexpected position toward this aggression.” The U.S. stand went “against international and moral laws and existing relations between Tunisia and the United States,” the communique said.

Reagan Denies Involvement

Reagan, in a message given to Bourguiba by Sebastien, denied American involvement in the raid and said Washington had not been forewarned. Reagan also expressed deep regret for the loss of life caused by the attack and the continuing terrorism that has compounded the problems of the Middle East.

Meanwhile, for security reasons, two Tunisian army armored cars took positions in the square in front of the U.S. Embassy. Reports circulated in the diplomatic community that the embassy, out of concern about possible reprisals, had decided to cancel some of its activities in the next few days and curtail others.

There were outbursts of anti-American feeling here and elsewhere in Tunisia. In the industrial port city of Gabes, 250 miles southeast of Tunis, about 7,000 people marched through the streets, carrying banners reading, “No Place for a U.S. Embassy in an Arab Country,” and about 4,000 workers went on a two-hour strike.

There were also small demonstrations outside the U.S. Cultural Center in Tunis by groups of youths shouting “Palestine, Palestine,” but the crowd dispersed after police arrived.

The Tunisian government raised its estimate of the death toll in the raid to 60, while the PLO claimed 70 people were killed. Reports from hospital sources indicated that the toll was 47 dead and 60 wounded in the raid by a squadron of U.S.-made Israeli F-16s that flew 1,300 miles across the Mediterranean Sea, dropped their bombs and then refueled in the air for the return trip.

‘100% Precision’ Bombing

After 24 hours, Tunisian authorities finally allowed foreign journalists to see the site of the bombing in the suburb of Hamam Shatt, 12 miles southeast of Tunis, where the extraordinary precision of the attack became clear. While the PLO’s beachfront complex was leveled, private Tunisian homes only a few feet away were scarcely touched.

“I am amazed how they were able to select these buildings as a target and not hurt any others. It was 100% precision,” said an East European diplomat who knew the headquarters before the bombing and now stood in front of the rubble.

Arafat, who moved his headquarters here after Israel drove the PLO out of Lebanon in its June 1982 invasion, said he was very close when the bombs struck and that some PLO members, but no high-ranking officials, were killed.

Arafat and other PLO spokesmen said the organization will now have to review the whole Middle East peace process. The PLO chief, along with Jordan’s King Hussein, has been pressing for a meeting between a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation and the United States as a preliminary step toward direct Arab-Israeli negotiations.

But Israel has made it clear that it fears such a meeting might lead to U.S. recognition of the PLO.

Sees Raid as Message

Arafat complained Wednesday that the Israeli raid “was a clear message from Reagan against the Jordanian-Palestinian initiative.”

“It was obvious and clear that they (the Israelis) were helped by American stations . . . by American bases, by the American 6th Fleet,” Arafat charged in an interview with Italy’s state-run RAI television network.

He also promised PLO retaliation for the raid. “My people will respond to this official terrorism and to the Israeli military junta,” he said, and will continue to carry out the “armed struggle” in Israeli-occupied Arab territories on the West Bank.

PLO spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman said: “What can the Palestinians do to save their lives? They are 2,400 kilometers away from Palestine, and Israelis killed them.”

Stylish Villas on Bay

At the site, soldiers, bulldozers and cranes were still clearing the debris of what had been a complex of stylish villas on Tunis Bay, some of them still under construction. Bulldozers pushed crumpled cars onto a nearby empty lot. Metal bars twisted out of smashed concrete.

The complex had included the PLO’s operational headquarters, several offices and and staff housing. PLO and Tunisian officials said that Arafat sometimes slept in an apartment there.

A Tunisian police officer said that another building destroyed by the Israelis several hundred feet away was the headquarters of what he called the Palestinian secret services.

Although Tunisians and Palestinian officials insisted that a large number of the dead and wounded were Tunisian civilians, none could show a Tunisian home that had been bombed. Tunisian security guards and other Tunisian employees at the complex were among the dead.