Beirut’s ‘War of Camps’ Breaks Out Once Again

Full-scale hostilities broke out anew Monday in Beirut’s bloody “war of the camps” as Shia Muslim militiamen battered three Palestinian refugee shantytowns with tank and mortar fire.

Justice Minister Nabih Berri’s Amal militiamen opened fire in mid-afternoon. Thunderous explosions resounded through the capital as Palestinians fired .50-caliber machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at Amal positions from their beleaguered camps on Beirut’s southern flank.

A Syrian-brokered truce, called Saturday evening, had curtailed the bloodletting after 27 days of savage fighting at the Sabra, Chatilla and Borj el Brajne camps killed at least 125 people and wounded more than 600.

‘Making Frantic Efforts’

“Government officials and Syrian army observers are making frantic efforts to arrest the sudden deterioration,” said a police spokesman. “They want to avert a total collapse of the cease-fire.”

Police had no casualty reports from the new fighting, which exploded as Amal and Palestinian representatives met with Syrian observers to study ways to consolidate the cease-fire.

Syria mediated the truce in talks with Berri and leaders of the Palestine National Salvation Front, an alliance of six Syrian-backed guerrilla factions opposed to Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Syria’s arch-foe.

Syria wants its Amal and Salvation Front allies to keep Arafat from rebuilding the Lebanon power base he lost in Israel’s 1982 invasion. But the Syrians were reportedly angered to see Salvation Front fighters defecting to fight alongside Arafat’s loyalists.

Police said the outbreak coincided with a wave of kidnapings at Beirut’s Green Line, the no man’s land that splits the capital into a Muslim west and a Christian east. At least seven Christians, including four printers at the independent newspaper An Nahar, were abducted as they walked to work across the Green Line into West Beirut, police said. The motive for the abductions was not clear.