Iran, Syria Vow to Crush Beirut’s Christian Forces

Iran, Syria and a phalanx of militias joined forces Tuesday in an open coalition to crush Christian power in war-torn Lebanon, as the Syrians unleashed increasingly fierce firepower on the besieged Christian enclave north of Beirut.

A communique drafted by Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh of Syria and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Velayati, along with representatives of more than 15 Lebanese and Palestinian guerrilla commands, vowed a combined effort to “confront the dictatorial regime of Michel Aoun,” the major general who leads the Christian-dominated Lebanese army.

‘We Will Finish Aoun’

One participant, George Hawi of the Lebanese Communist Party militia, put it more bluntly. Speaking to reporters and pistol-toting bodyguards outside a restaurant where the pact was reached, Hawi declared: “We will finish Aoun.”

The Communist warlord vowed that an offensive would start soon and that “Syria and Iran will support it materially and in every other way.” The Damascus government reportedly nailed down a pledge by Tehran on Tuesday to help fund the militias for an escalated battle.

In New York, U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar called an emergency Security Council meeting, probably for today, in an effort to arrange a cease-fire in the 14-year civil war.

The U.N. charter allows the secretary general to call such meetings in situations deemed threatening to international security. The last session of this sort was held in 1979 after Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

At the same time, Pope John Paul II, in Castelgondolfo, Italy, added a forceful plea to the growing appeals for an end to the bloodshed. His voice shaking with emotion, the pontiff denounced the “genocide” taking place in Lebanon and accused Syria of wanting to destroy the country.

“In the name of God, I turn to the Syrian authorities, asking them to stop the bombardment,” he said.

In Lebanon, Christian-led forces, greatly outnumbered by Syrian soldiers, fought Syrian troops with tanks and artillery along the southern, eastern and northern edges of the 310-square-mile enclave north of Beirut.

Mountain Ridge

At the southeastern edge of the enclave, Aoun’s troops and Druze Muslim gunners traded artillery fire across the mountain ridge of Souq el Gharb, a strategic town overlooking Beirut where the Christian forces fought off a ground offensive Sunday. Syrian gunners also hit the 28-mile-long coastline in the enclave, the Christians’ only escape route.

According to police, 19 people were killed and 99 were wounded in the fighting. Since the renewed battles began last March, when Aoun launched a “war of liberation” to expel Syria’s troops from Lebanon, 760 people have been killed and 2,045 wounded.

The pact announced in Damascus labeled Aoun a tool of “imperialistic, Zionist and reactionary regimes” and pledged combined support as well for Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Militia leaders taking part included Walid Jumblatt, the Druze chieftain of the Progressive Socialist Party; Nabih Berri of the Shiite Muslim Amal forces, and Ahmed Jibril, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a Syrian-based Palestinian group that has been implicated in terrorist incidents.

In addition, according to Hawi, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement “will take part in the war.” Hezbollah has so far taken no direct role in the murderous artillery war in Beirut, but it has figured prominently in the concurrent hostage crisis.

Participants in the conference said the hostage issue was never raised, although Hezbollah representatives were present. Velayati, the black-bearded Iranian foreign minister, had arrived in Damascus on Monday, insisting that his trip had no relation to the hostage crisis.

Diplomats here expressed uncertainty about the Tehran line. However, asked if Velayati and his Syrian counterpart had discussed the issue, one Western diplomatic observer responded: “They darn well better have.”

The vow to press the war against Aoun came 24 hours after a State Department spokesman in Washington accused Syria and its Lebanese allies of “an irresponsible escalation” of violence in Sunday’s ground assault on Souq el Gharb.

Moreover, what the anti-Aoun coalition does show, the Western diplomatic observer said, is that “militias now are monetized again. Everybody needs their militias.”

Funding has been a persistent problem for the Lebanese militias, who reportedly pay their fighters about $200 a month in a competitive market. Some money formerly came from the Libyan government of Col. Moammar Kadafi, but Western intelligence sources have reported that Kadafi suspended payments last year.

Iran has apparently agreed to take up the slack, in part because its longtime enemy, Iraq, has moved into the bloody game in Lebanon, supplying arms to the Christian-led forces. Nothing in the communique indicated Iranian armed forces would take a direct role.

Iraq also is an ideological foe of Syria, whose Soviet-armed troops were sent into Lebanon in 1976 under an Arab League peacekeeping mandate.

Jumblatt touched on another sore point as he left the restaurant.

“I want to get out of this destructive war,” he told reporters, “but how can I when all the Arabs excepting Syria are supporting Michel Aoun?”

The reference was clearly directed at the 22-member Arab League, whose latest peacemaking efforts collapsed three weeks ago. A committee from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Morocco charged with finding a solution to the current battle of Beirut laid the blame on Syrian intransigence.

“We have to defend ourselves,” Jumblatt insisted, pointing to the attack at Souq el Gharb as a precursor to a new level of war in Lebanon. Although the assault was repulsed, Jumblatt--whose Druze militia took part--said it sent a message that “we can do anything, any time, anywhere.”

“There are no red lines anymore,” he concluded, suggesting that the informal boundary between Syrian and Israeli forces in southern Lebanon had no application between Christian and Muslim forces in the center of the country.

Meanwhile, France, which regards itself as protector of the Lebanese Christian population, said it was sending a frigate to the region “to be able to give whatever assistance is needed and to be capable of giving aid to the French community” in Lebanon.