6 Killed as Israeli, Shia Fighters Clash in Lebanese Border Zone

Israeli troops backed by helicopter gunships fought Shia Muslim guerrillas Monday in what a U.N. peacekeeping force spokesman called “the longest battle we have seen in south Lebanon for quite a while.”

Israel television reported six Iranian-backed guerrillas of the radical Shia movement Hezbollah (Party of God) were killed in a joint operation of the Israeli air force and infantry.

The military command refused to comment on the reports.

Timur Goksel, spokesman for the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, said the battle started Monday morning near the deserted village of Yater, four miles north of the Israeli border. The fighting was still going on Monday night, he said.

Yater, located in Israel’s self-proclaimed “security zone” in south Lebanon, has been the scene of several battles during the past year between Israeli troops, assisting their Lebanese militia allies, and Shia guerrillas.

Goksel said that on Monday morning guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells at an outpost of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army.

Shortly afterward, Israeli helicopter gunships arrived to search the area, he said. He said about 150 Shia guerrillas opened fire with machine guns and also fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Israeli helicopters.

Israel set up the 6-to-10-mile-wide zone north of the border after it withdrew the bulk of its troops from south Lebanon in June, 1985, ending a three-year occupation.

The 5,700-member UNIFIL was deployed in south Lebanon in 1978 following an earlier Israeli invasion.