Syrians Move to Stem S. Lebanon Fighting

Syrian military observers intervened Saturday to stem the fiercest fighting in four months around Palestinian refugee camps east of this port city in southern Lebanon, security sources reported.

The sources said a Lebanese man had been killed and nine people injured over a 48-hour period, including five Palestinian guerrillas and three Shia Muslim Amal militiamen, in the renewed fighting.

Amal fighters and Palestinians defending the camps exchanged mortar shells, rockets and heavy machine-gun fire. For the first time, flares were used to light up the night battlefront.

The fighting was the worst since April when Syrian troops helped end a six-month outbreak of the bloody “camps war” around five Palestinian camps in Beirut and southern Lebanon.

Syrian troops are deployed in and around the Beirut camps but at the moment are present only as far south as the northern entrance to Sidon, 25 miles south of Beirut.

Syrian military observers met officials of Lebanese Islamic and leftist parties and Palestinian factions to try to stem the latest fighting as sporadic clashes flared.

Both sides blamed the other for starting the clashes by sniping at opposing positions.

Observers said the fighting had its roots in tension from the earlier camps war battles, which killed at least 900 people and in which some camps suffered siege, hunger and disease.

Amal, with Syrian backing, says it has fought to curb the growing influence of Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas loyal to Yasser Arafat.

Of about 2,000 guerrillas among the 70,000 Palestinians living in the Ein el Hilwa camp and settlements east of Sidon, two-thirds are Arafat loyalists, the observers said.

The Palestinians say Amal wants to expel them from Lebanon in order to clear the way for a Shia region.

A main irritant in the clashes east of Sidon is high ground captured by Palestinian forces near the camps--including Borj el Brajne and Mar Elias--last year. The Palestinians have withdrawn from some positions but say they will stay in others.