24 Die in Beirut as Shias Battle Leftist Alliance

Shia Muslim Amal militiamen fought an alliance of Communist and Druze militiamen Tuesday in West Beirut, turning the streets into a bloody battleground for control of the mostly Muslim area.

At least 24 people were reported killed and 110 wounded.

The clashes were the worst in West Beirut in at least a year and the bloodiest in the Lebanese capital since September, security sources said.

After more than 30 hours of battles involving tanks and artillery, the chief of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kenaan, announced that representatives of both sides agreed to an early evening cease-fire.

Effect of Cease-Fire

A peace meeting at the home of Amal leader Nabih Berri ended with an order for a security committee to tour trouble spots. There were some reports that most of the fierce fighting eased several hours later; however, other reports said the fighting continued well into the evening.

Also on Tuesday, Berri announced that his militia today will lift its four-month siege of Palestinian refugee camps in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The practical effect of Berri’s announcement was unclear, however, since the ground fighting in West Beirut forced U.N. officials to give up their attempts Tuesday to deliver medicine and food to starving residents of the Chatilla and Borj el Brajne camps.

In the streets, thousands of militiamen fought running battles, and explosions rocked the capital, keeping civilians in the shelter of their homes and basements as ambulance crews risked their lives to reach trapped casualties.

Police said that Hussein Mroweh, 80, a Shia Muslim writer and member of the Communist Party executive committee, was assassinated by gunmen at his home. The assailants were unknown, and no other details were available.

A Lebanese Red Cross ambulance driver was machine-gunned to death as he drove the wounded to West Beirut’s American University Hospital, where casualties were placed in corridors when spare beds ran out.

The conflict started with clashes Sunday between the Amal militia and members of the Lebanese Communist Party. The two groups have fought periodically in recent years.

It was unclear what prompted the current flare-up. However, there were reports that the problem involved territorial jurisdiction in embattled West Beirut, with Amal either trying to occupy a Communist Party office or to open up an office near a building housing the Communist Party’s Beirut newspaper.

By dawn Tuesday, the Druze Progressive Socialist Party had joined the Communists in a leftist coalition against Amal.

The Druze brought into the fray their Soviet-made T-54 tanks and heavy artillery to counter Amal’s Syrian-supplied T-54s on streets that were filled with smoke and littered with broken glass and tons of other debris.

Cars, Homes Set Afire

Scores of cars, factories and apartment buildings were hit by grenades, mortars and tank shells and blazed out of control throughout the day and night.

During the day, Syria--chief power broker in Lebanon--pressured Berri, Communist Party leader Georges Hawi in Damascus and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, holed up at his palace in the Shouf Mountains overlooking West Beirut, to make peace.

Syria backs all three factions against Christian militias in Lebanon’s decade-old civil conflict.

Speaking in Damascus, Berri accused Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization of joining the much-smaller Communist Party against Amal, the predominant Shia force in Lebanon.

“Arafat is launching a counterattack in West Beirut aimed at getting Amal out,” said Berri. “All are cooperating against Amal. There have been attempts to get Amal out of Beirut for the past two years, but no one can.”

Weeks of Tension

Each side blamed the other for starting the bloodshed, which came after weeks of increasing tension among Beirut’s pro-Syrian factions was heightened by Amal’s crippling siege of the city’s Palestinian refugee camps.

Although Berri said his forces will lift the siege at the camps to allow in relief supplies, he said they will keep up their military drive to stop the Palestinians from rebuilding the power base they lost with the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

State-run Damascus radio swiftly broadcast Berri’s announcement, indicating it was sanctioned by Syria.

The fighting Tuesday was the worst in Beirut since September, 1986, when battles among Christian forces killed 31 people, and the worst involving Amal and the Druze Progressive Socialist Party since November, 1985, when 30 were killed and 140 wounded.

Blood Donors Sought

Radio stations broadcast repeated appeals for blood donors.

Hundreds of Syrian troops, sent to West Beirut last year to back the latest of scores of “security plans,” stayed in their barracks as the factions fought it out.

Among thousands of people caught up in the fighting were American Muslims Mohammed Mehdi and Dale Shaheen, who were trapped in their hotel on the day that they had planned to start working to get hostages in Lebanon freed.