Gunman Injures Arafat Aide in S. Lebanon

Yasser Arafat’s top political aide in southern Lebanon was wounded outside his home Tuesday when a gunman fired at least four bullets into his parked car.

Zeid Wehbe, the PLO chairman’s personal envoy, was the fifth high-ranking PLO loyalist targeted by assassins since Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed a peace accord Sept. 13. The other four were killed in the occupied territories.

Wehbe, 58, was shot while sitting in the front passenger seat of his car, waiting for his driver. His assailant escaped. He was taken to Hammoud Hospital in Sidon, where doctors said he was in stable condition after three bullets were removed from his neck, shoulder and arm. A fourth bullet grazed his forehead.

It was not clear whether the attack in Sidon was linked to the peace accord or to a 20-year feud between Arafat and rival Abu Nidal.

A police spokesman said investigators had no clue to the identity or the motive of the assailants.

But hospital sources said Wehbe muttered it “was those Abu Nidal rogues who did it” as he recovered from anesthesia. A senior PLO security officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, also blamed the attack on the Revolutionary Council of Fatah headed by Abu Nidal, who is linked to dozens of terrorist acts throughout the world.