French Envoy on Peace Mission Dodges Shells in West Beirut

A French envoy on a Lebanon peace mission dodged shells when artillery duels erupted in Beirut on Wednesday while he was talking with Muslim leaders.

Braving gunfire on his way to Muslim West Beirut, envoy Francois Scheer was later forced to hold the talks in a corridor as shells crashed around the house where he was meeting with a Muslim religious authority.

On the other side of the city, two French post office engineers were among four people wounded in Syrian shelling of the blockaded Christian enclave, held by troops loyal to the Lebanese army commander, Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun.

Security sources said the latest bout of fighting broke out between Aoun’s men and an alliance of Syrian troops and Lebanese Muslim militiamen as Scheer drove in a bulletproof car, accompanied by two cars with bodyguards, across the so-called Green Line that divides Beirut.

Scheer held talks with Sheik Mohammed Mehdi Shamseddine, the top religious authority for Lebanon’s 1.5-million Shiite Muslim community. Two shells fell outside Shamseddine’s house during the meeting, forcing the discussions to be switched to the relative safety of a corridor.

Scheer, whose country ruled Lebanon for 26 years, arrived in Beirut on Tuesday and met with Aoun, who heads Lebanon’s Christian government, and with Maronite Catholic Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir in East Beirut. He has conferred in West Beirut with acting Premier Salim Hoss, a Sunni Muslim who heads a Cabinet that rivals Aoun’s; Parliament Speaker Hussein Husseini, a Shiite, and Shiite militia chieftain Nabih Berri.

Political sources said Scheer’s talks focused on persuading the rival parties to adhere to a cease-fire, to stop air, sea and land arms shipments to all Lebanese factions and to form a security committee to search ships for weapons.

‘War of Liberation’

Pro-Syrian Lebanese political sources said Syria and its allies would not lift their five-month blockade of the Christian enclave unless Aoun announced the end of his “war of liberation” against Syria.

Syria, the dominant foreign power in Lebanon, supplies Muslim and leftist forces with arms, while Aoun’s forces get weapons from Iraq, Syria’s main Arab foe.

Christian political sources said Aoun is still insisting on the withdrawal of Syria’s 40,000 troops from Lebanon.