Israel Attacks Guerrilla Base; Dozens Killed

Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked a training base of Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas near the Lebanese town of Baalbek early Thursday, killing as many as 50 and wounding 200.

Striking at 2 a.m., as the estimated 400 guerrillas slept in tents on a rocky hillside, 10 Israeli fighter-bombers rocketed the base in waves and followed with intensive cannon fire, according to Lebanese officials. Six helicopters then raked the exposed camp with more rocket fire and strafed it with machine guns for nearly 15 minutes.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Faris Bouez, putting the death toll at 45, called the attack “a massacre” and “naked aggression against Lebanon’s sovereignty and security and a big challenge to the peace process.”

Hezbollah declared that its revenge would be “swift and merciless.”

About 11 hours later, the first of three barrages of Katyusha rockets--25 in all--fell in Israel’s western Galilee region, landing mostly in farm fields and causing no casualties and little damage. Hezbollah also rocketed Israel’s self-declared “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

But Mordechai Gur, Israeli deputy defense minister, quickly warned that Israeli forces would respond “seven-fold” against Hezbollah if its rocket attacks upon Israel continued.

“This is something we won’t put up with,” Gur declared.

Anticipating intensified clashes, Israeli forces increased their firepower in southern Lebanon early Wednesday, 24 hours before the raid on Baalbek, by bringing four heavy, long-range artillery guns north across the border into Lebanon, according to U.N. sources.

After the first rockets fell near the northern Israeli town of Nahariya early Thursday afternoon, residents in the region were ordered into bomb shelters and fortified “security rooms.”

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin described the Baalbek attack as part of “an ongoing war” between Israel, Hezbollah and other Islamic fundamentalist groups opposed to Israel’s agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization on Palestinian self-government and to other efforts to achieve Middle East peace.

“Whenever we have an opportunity to hit terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah without causing civilian casualties, we will do it,” Rabin said. “We have always done so, and we will continue to do so.”

Israel had acted in self-defense in hitting the Hezbollah base, Gur said, because the guerrillas had “all participated in operations or were about to take part in operations.”

Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, Israeli chief of staff, said Israel had acted on extensive information on the Hezbollah training session from aerial reconnaissance and other “very precise intelligence.”

The Israeli Cabinet approved the operation at special session Wednesday.

But the attack brought warnings that the unrelenting confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon could endanger efforts to negotiate peace agreements throughout the Middle East.

In New York, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said he was concerned by “the escalation of violence at a sensitive time in the Middle East.”

The attack was one of Israel’s most successful against Hezbollah and the fiercest since its weeklong bombardment of southern Lebanon in July--a demonstration of Rabin’s determination to ensure not only Israeli security in the face of Hezbollah attacks but to protect the peace process from a backlash among Israelis concerned about weakness on the part of Rabin.

The action also reflected Rabin’s loss of faith in Syria--the dominant power in Lebanon--as a partner in the Middle East peace process. Rabin said earlier this week that he saw no chance of an early breakthrough in Israel’s talks with Syria despite U.S. mediation in recent months.

“This can be seen as a signal to the Syrians: You aren’t doing anything against Hezbollah, about the (Israeli) MIAs, so don’t expect us to make any concessions to you,” said Yossi Olmert, a leading Israeli specialist on Syria and Lebanon. “What you didn’t do, we’ll do--regardless of your sensitivities.”

Hezbollah enjoys Syrian protection in Lebanon, as well as Iranian patronage.

The base hit Thursday is in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, about seven miles from the Syrian border and 44 miles east of Beirut. With 40,000 troops in Lebanon, Syria is the dominant political and military power in the country.

Israel halted its onslaught in July only after Secretary of State Warren Christopher had secured Syrian pledges that Hezbollah would not attack Israeli communities from southern Lebanon.

The Israeli bombardment last summer killed about 150 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, and drove several hundred thousand people from their homes.

With the Baalbek attack, Olmert suggested that Israel has moved to a preemptive rather a retaliatory approach to Hezbollah, which likes to describe itself as waging the Arabs’ only sustained armed confrontation with the Jewish state.

“They can’t know what’s going to come next--they should be nervous,” Olmert said. “It creates uncertainty, and that is always good for Israel. . . . This was a serious blow, but not a crippling one.”

In Beirut, Lebanese President Elias Hrawi summoned the country’s Supreme Defense Council, which includes the nation’s top defense and political officials, to an emergency meeting. Lebanon decided to file a complaint with the U.N. Security Council over the raid.

The exact toll was uncertain, even at nightfall. Hezbollah said 31 of its guerrillas had been killed, Radio Lebanon reported 45, quoting Bouez and other government officials, and Israeli sources said initial assessments and intelligence reports put the likely death toll at more than 50. Rescue workers reported that Iranians, presumably members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, were among the dead.

The raid was Israel’s second attack on Muslim guerrillas in the Bekaa Valley in two weeks. Helicopter-borne commandos abducted Mustafa Dirani, leader of the small pro-Iranian faction Faithful Resistance, pulling him from his bed before dawn May 21.

Israel said it hopes to get information from Dirani on Capt. Ron Arad, an Israeli air force navigator whose plane was shot down over southern Lebanon in 1986. Arad was captured by Dirani’s followers but was later handed over to Iran. His whereabouts are not known.

After the Dirani raid, which greatly embarrassed Syria and Lebanon, Hezbollah vowed revenge and said the combat zone would now be expanded beyond southern Lebanon.

Times special correspondent Marilyn Raschka in Beirut also contributed to this report.