Buffer Force Advances Between Shia Muslims and PLO

A 150-man neutral buffer force advanced Wednesday in a drive to head off more bloodshed between Shia Muslim militiamen and Palestine Liberation Organization fighters near Sidon refugee camps.

The Sunni Muslim People’s Liberation Army militia occupied five new positions on the front lines of the Shia-PLO conflict east of Sidon. The advance came after two days of gunfire from the Shias’ Amal militia had held up the 150-man force deployed under a Syrian-mediated truce declared Sunday.

Representatives from Amal and a pro-Syrian coalition of Palestinian groups met Wednesday in an attempt to clear the way for the neutral Sunni force to widen its area of deployment and prevent further bloodshed.

In Beirut, however, security sources said the Shias and the Palestinians traded rocket, mortar and machine-gun fire in a fierce four-hour conflict around the already-battered Borj el Brajne refugee camp.

Sunni Muslim Voice of the Nation radio said shrapnel from an anti-tank rocket fired from inside the Palestinian camp seriously wounded a girl, and at least two Amal gunmen were wounded before the fighting eased to sniper fire.

The deterioration in Beirut coincided with apparently irreconcilable demands from both PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction and pro-Syrian Lebanese militia leaders.

At least 42 people have been killed and 87 wounded in five days of fighting around Palestinian refugee camps near Tyre, 46 miles south of Beirut, and Sidon, 22 miles from the capital. The Palestinians blame the fighting on unprovoked Amal attacks on the camps.

Amal, Lebanon’s most powerful Muslim militia, is trying to prevent the PLO from rebuilding its military stronghold in southern Lebanon, crushed in the 1982 Israeli invasion. Amal fears that a resurgent PLO would bring about a new wave of Israeli attacks.

But the Palestinians contend that Amal is trying to exterminate them. Amal is supported by Syria, which also backs renegade Palestinian groups opposed to Arafat.

In a statement issued in Sidon, Arafat’s Fatah faction Wednesday accused Amal of forcibly evicting Palestinian civilians and burning their homes in Tyre and two other towns. Fatah called for Amal to end its siege around the camps, to release prisoners and allow the return of an estimated 3,000 Palestinians who have fled from Tyre to Sidon since last week.

But Druze Muslim warlord Walid Jumblatt, siding with Amal, issued a statement from his palace southeast of Beirut saying, “We refuse a Palestinian expansion in Sidon, east or west, north or south.”

Jumblatt has joined other pro-Syrian militia leaders, including Amal leader Nabih Berri, in vowing to confront “a dangerous stage” of Arafat’s drive to end almost four years of exile from Lebanon.

“We refuse to let the Palestinians use Lebanon as a pressure point and adventure by which to enter the political game in the Middle East,” said Jumblatt, who previously aided Palestinian factions.