Syrian Shells Hit Lebanese Palace, U.S. Envoy’s Villa

Syrian gunners blasted the presidential palace, army headquarters and the U.S. ambassador’s residence with mortar fire today.

Gunmen stormed the central prison in Muslim West Beirut, freeing 189 convicts. A special squad of police, armed with M-16 assault rifles, recaptured 95 of them despite shellfire across the divided city, authorities said.

Police said 10 people were killed and 89 wounded in today’s duels between the Christian army units of Gen. Michel Aoun and their Syrian and Druze militia foes.

That raised the overall toll to 337 people killed and 1,323 wounded since the latest round of fighting, believed to be the most destructive of Lebanon’s 14-year-old civil war, erupted March 8.

Within an hour, 60 rounds, mostly 240-millimeter mortars, struck the palace in the Christian suburb of Baabda and the nearby Defense Ministry in Yarze, where Aoun has his headquarters.

Only the Syrian army possesses such weapons in Lebanon.

“They’ve decided to demolish both facilities,” a military spokesman said by telephone from underground shelters at the Defense Ministry.

“Our gunners are responding to silence the source of fire,” he said, insisting on anonymity.

Aides said Aoun, 53, his wife and three daughters have been living in a shelter at the palace.

“Damage was considerable, but we cannot really give a more precise assessment because we have all been living in the bunker for four days,” an official at the presidential palace said.

The U.S. Embassy said Ambassador John McCarthy’s two-story villa was hit, but there were no casualties. McCarthy and his family are abroad.

Tank clashes escalated into a savage shelling of Christian and Muslim residential districts about midnight, the police spokesman said.

“Both sides were using the population as their shield,” the spokesman said. He cannot be named under standing police rules.

Ambulance sirens and thuds from exploding shells echoed across the city until the fighting slackened three hours later.