Troops Act to Pacify Lebanon’s South, Clash With Palestinians

The Lebanese army risked confrontation with Palestinian guerrillas Monday as it deployed 3,500 troops and heavy armor in and around Sidon, the country’s main southern port.

Clashes broke out in the late afternoon between Lebanese army troops and Palestinians allied with fundamentalist Muslims. Two guerrillas were wounded and 20 captured.

The latest army deployment, along an 18-mile stretch of road east of Sidon, was the most difficult since the army began its step-by-step takeover from the country’s warring Christian and Muslim militias last December. Under the process, led by Lebanese President Elias Hrawi and overseen by the Syrian army, the main power broker here, Lebanon’s ravaged capital, Beirut, is now peaceful for the first time in over a decade.

Helmeted troops entering the predominantly Sunni Muslim city of Sidon early Monday were given the traditional rice and rose-petal welcome by happy Sidonians. The local Sunni Muslim militia, the Popular Nasserite Organization, a force of 5,000 fighters long allied with the Palestine Liberation Organization, turned over its positions to the army without incident.

But southern hospitality cooled as the troops proceeded into the foothills east of the city, where Muslim fundamentalist and Palestinian forces have been entrenched since 1985 after the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Sidon.

Despite Lebanese government attempts to discuss the situation with the Palestinians, guerrilla commanders in the village of Kfar Jarra refused to surrender their positions to the army, saying only, “A decision must come from Tunis.” Since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the expelled PLO has been headquartered in the Tunisian capital.

In return for withdrawing from its bases, the PLO has demanded that the government agree to civil, social and political rights for the 300,000 Palestinian refugees.

The Lebanese army had hoped to control the 18-mile stretch before nightfall, but the distance between Kfar Jarra and Tunis only lengthened as the day wore on. The village, deserted by civilians, lies only three miles from the most continuously active front in Lebanon--where Palestinians and their allies confront the Israeli-backed militia known as the South Lebanon Army.

Created by Israel in 1978, the 3,000-man force polices a border strip of 440 square miles inside Lebanon that Israel calls its security zone. For two decades, the area has been a jumping-off place for guerrilla raids against Israel.

The Lebanese government is seeking U.S. help in pressuring Israel to leave the border strip. On Saturday, the U.S. government expressed the hope that the deployment of the Lebanese army would be a move toward “a Lebanon free of all militias and all non-Lebanese forces.”