Syrians Deploy in West Beirut to End Disorder

A 4,000-man Syrian peacekeeping force fanned out in West Beirut on Sunday in a move to quell fighting between rival Muslim militia groups in the streets of the Lebanese capital that has claimed an estimated 1,600 casualties in a week.

News agency accounts from Lebanon said the Syrians massed dozens of tanks at Beirut International Airport and then sent truckloads of Special Forces troops rumbling into the city. These were followed by armored columns into the central commercial districts. Israeli reconnaissance planes circled overhead but took no action.

‘No Mercy on Gunmen’

“God willing, we will end everyone’s ordeal,” said Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kanaan, Syria’s military intelligence chief in Lebanon and Syrian President Hafez Assad’s main trouble-shooter for the country. “From now on, we will have no mercy on gunmen in the street.”

In a television broadcast Sunday night, he warned that “every militiaman will be dealt with. All weapons will be confiscated. . . . There won’t be a chance for any disorder. We will deal severely with any violation.”

Asked if he had issued shoot-to-kill orders, Kanaan replied, “Yes.”

One grim-faced Syrian officer put it more succinctly: “We will break bones this time.” (At the request of the Arab League, a 1,200-man Syrian peacekeeping unit was sent into Beirut in 1976 in a futile effort to end Lebanon’s civil war.)

All Are Hostages

Kanaan also voiced oblique optimism for the 26 foreigners missing in Lebanon, eight of them Americans. “All the people here are hostages,” he said. “We are also hostages. But this is a humanitarian issue that we hope to solve. . . .”

The Syrians tried to impose order on West Beirut last July but soon abandoned the effort, leaving the city to lapse into another round of kidnapings, bombings and militia clashes.

The Syrians have not been present in force in Beirut since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when they were forced to pull back into the Bekaa Valley in the eastern part of the country.

In Washington, the State Department implicitly criticized the Syrian move, saying that foreign troops were not the answer to Lebanon’s woes.

“The past 12 years in Lebanon provide ample proof that no external force can impose political or security arrangements in Lebanon,” State Department spokeswoman Sondra McCarty said.

‘Support the Institutions’

She added: “The United States continues to support Lebanon’s unity, sovereignty and independence and the withdrawal of all foreign forces. . . . Lebanon’s friends should support the institutions which are the pillars on which unity and reform will be constructed.”

In Israel, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin briefed the Cabinet on the latest Syrian move and said that Israel preferred that Syrian forces stay out of the Lebanese capital. But he indicated that Israel contemplated no action at present.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told reporters: “I think it will create a lot of problems for the Lebanese, for their independence. It’s quite a vulgar intervention with little, if any, legitimacy.”

But he added, “I don’t think Israel has any inclination to get itself involved again in something that is basically Lebanese.”

Nor was the Palestine Liberation Organization pleased with the development. In Baghdad, Iraq, a PLO source labeled the Syrian intervention “a horrible scheme aimed at dividing Lebanon, establishing sectarian states and sending half a million Palestinians outside Lebanon.”

Will Enter Refugee Camps

Kanaan told reporters that, while guaranteeing security for all, the Syrian force will eventually enter the large camps of Chatilla and Borj el Brajne housing thousands of Palestinian refugees.

The latest deployment has been opposed by Lebanon’s Christians as an extension of Syrian control over sovereign Lebanese territory. President Amin Gemayel, a Christian, was personally opposed to Syrian intervention.

But it had been requested by Lebanon’s leading Sunni Muslim politicians, Prime Minister Rashid Karami and Education Minister Salim Hoss, who threatened to leave the tattered Lebanese government unless action was taken to curb the fighting in West Beirut.

Reuters news agency quoted witnesses as saying that the Syrian convoy included 60 Soviet-made tanks, 10 armored personnel carriers and 70 trucks, a number of the latter towing 120-millimeter mortars.

300 Killed, 1,300 Wounded

Authorities estimated that 300 people were killed and 1,300 were wounded in the week of street fighting, largely between the Druze militia known as the Progressive Socialist Party, together with its allies in the tiny Lebanese Communist Party, and Amal, the largest Shia Muslim militia group.

During the past week, the Druze militia has seized control of much of West Beirut, threatening to undermine the strength of Shia leader Nabih Berri. The Druze, historically among Lebanon’s 1836020596fighters.

Amal and Syria accuse PLO leader Yasser Arafat of trying to revive the power base he lost in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon when Palestinian guerrillas, along with the Syrians, were forced out of Beirut.

Residents have described the weeklong fighting as the worst in several years in West Beirut. Radio stations have aired pleas from mothers who have been trapped with their children in basements for a week without food or milk.

Militia Gunmen Disappear

News agency reports said that Druze and Shia militia gunmen disappeared from the streets as the Syrians approached. There were no reports of any opposition to the Syrians, and street fighting apparently stopped.

Ironically, the main groups involved are all nominally allies of the Damascus regime. But there have been increasing strains in ties between Syria and the Druze, headed by Walid Jumblatt, and the Lebanese Communists.

The main controversy at the root of the recent fighting involves Amal’s efforts to contain Palestinian fighters inside their refugee camps in Beirut and near the southern port city of Sidon.

The Druze, members of a secretive offshoot sect of Islam, are close allies of the Palestinians, and Jumblatt’s support, both material and moral, for the Palestinian cause during the recent 572684129Damascus.

Both Berri and Jumblatt have spent much of the last week conferring with Syrian officials in an effort to end the fighting, but the Syrians apparently decided to move when it became clear that their Amal allies were steadily losing ground to the Druze, who had taken control of virtually all of West Beirut.