Lebanon Takes Its Toll

By William E. Smith.

Fighting intensifies, and the Marines suffer their first combat casualties

For two hours, the mortars, shells and rockets crashed down on the lightly reinforced encampment around the runways at Beirut International Airport. Crouched in their bunkers, the 1,200 U.S. Marines who form part of a four-nation, 5,400-man peace-keeping force could do little more than keep their heads low and occasionally fire back. "We could hear bullets whizzing above us, and others were impacting on our sand bags," Sergeant Donald Williams, 28, later recalled. Whenever they saw a muzzle flash or some other indication of where the large rounds were coming from, the Marines retaliated with their rifles and machine guns, and finally resorted to their 155-mm cannons and missile-armed Cobra helicopters. At about 9:45 a.m., the first of two 82-mm mortar shells came cascading into the command tent where Staff Sergeant Alexander M. Ortega, 25, was getting batteries for radios. Just outside the tent, Second Lieut. Donald G. Losey Jr., 28, was running from one bunker to another, checking on his men. Both men were hit by shrapnel and died shortly thereafter. Fourteen other Marines were wounded before the fighting finally subsided.

The Marines were the victims of the worst outbreak of factional fighting since the Israeli invasion last summer. Although there could be no doubt that Druze and Shi'ite militiamen in the hills and shantytowns near the airport had deliberately targeted the U.S. troops, stray rounds also made their way into the compound. Uneasy about the security of the Marine contingent in Lebanon, the U.S. last week ordered an additional 2,000 Marines from East Africa to the eastern Mediterranean, making them available for service in Lebanon if they should be needed.

Almost before anyone realized it, a minor incident had exploded into an all-out fight between the Lebanese army and the Shi'ite Amal militia. When the army moved into Amal strongholds in Beirut's southern suburbs, masked gunmen representing several Muslim factions took control of their neighborhoods in West Beirut, sending civilians scurrying to the safety of their homes. Armed with rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47 assault rifles and light mortars, they attacked Lebanese army guardposts, barracks and convoys. In response, the Lebanese army dispatched 10,000 troops, backed up by tanks and armored personnel carriers, to regain control of the city. Supported by tank rounds and heavy machine-gun fire, infantrymen crept up alleys and side streets in search of the militiamen.

Contrary to the expectations of many, the untested army, which had remained argely out of sight since the outbreak of the 1975-76 civil war, successfully reasserted the government's authority. But it was not clear how long the calm would last. At week's end, the Lebanese Cabinet ordered an investigation of reports that as many as 40 Christian civilians were massacred by Druze militiamen last Thursday in the mountain village of Bmariam.

The renewed fighting marked a grim anniversary. Exactly one year earlier, the last of the 6,000 commandos of the Palestine Liberation Organization had been evacuated from Beirut, marking an end of sorts to Israel's ill-conceived war in Lebanon, although not, as it turned out, to the bloodshed. The Lebanese war and its aftermath have cost the Arabs, both Lebanese and Palestinians, the lives of thousands of civilians and hundreds of fighters. On the Israeli side, by latest count, 517 servicemen have been killed and more than 3,000 wounded. In addition to the two U.S. Marines killed last week, two other Marines and five French servicemen, all members of the multinational peace-keeping force, have lost their lives in Lebanon.

To the long list of casualties must now be added the political career of Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel for the past six years and the man who was ultimately responsible for staging his country's most unpopular war. For months he had seemed ill and despondent, and he had much to grieve about. He had lost his wife last November. In addition, he was upset over the continuing Israeli casualties in Lebanon; the frequently televised funerals of servicemen, a colleague recently remarked, were "breaking his heart." Even the principal achievement of Begin's tenure, the peace treaty with Egypt, had been tarnished by the war in Lebanon. Relations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were cool, and Mubarak had accelerated his efforts to renew ties with the Arab world.

After five days of political uncertainty, Begin's Herut Party, the dominant group in the ruling Likud coalition, chose Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 67, to replace Begin as party leader (see following story). Because of his age and his links with the past, the Polish-born Shamir was considered a transitional figure, a man who will try to hold the coalition together until elections take place, between now and June 1985. With some 36,000 Israeli troops still occupying one-third of Lebanon's territory, however, there was little chance that Lebanon would not come to dominate Shamir's agenda.

Last week also marked the anniversary of President Reagan's Middle East peace initiative, which he had announced the day the P.L.O. evacuation from Beirut was completed. Addressing himself to the plight of the 1.2 million Palestinian Arabs of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Reagan had called for negotiations leading to a future association between those territories and Jordan. The plan was quickly rejected by both Israelis and the radical Arabs, and even moderates like King Hussein of Jordan found they could not accept it without broader Arab support. Despite that reception, Reagan maintained last week that the initiative was "definitely alive" and remained "the only realistic basis that has thus far been presented" for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Throughout most of the past year, U.S. Middle East policy was as mired down by the impasse in Lebanon as were the warring parties themselves. After months of negotiation, the U.S. finally got Israel and Lebanon to agree to the withdrawal of the 36,000 Israeli troops in Lebanon. But that understanding was conditional upon the removal of 60,000 Syrian troops, and Syria, it soon became apparent, had no intention of accepting an agreement that it had played no part in framing. Washington's real aim was to get the foreign troops out of Lebanon in order to give Amin Gemayel a chance to rebuild his country. In the end, however, Reagan became fearful that too sudden a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Beirut area could create an even greater problem for the Gemayel government.

Ironically, it was the Begin government's decision to pull its troops back to a more secure line at the Awali River, 17 miles south of Beirut, that helped precipitate the latest fighting. With the situation in Lebanon deteriorating, the U.S. had asked Begin to delay his government's plan to redeploy Israeli forces to the Awali. In one of his last acts as Prime Minister, Begin agreed to the Reagan request; in return, he received some harsh criticism from one of his colleagues. At the Cabinet meeting at which Begin announced his plan to resign, Minister Without Portfolio Ariel Sharon, who, as Defense Minister, had been the chief architect of Israel's misadventure in Lebanon, attacked him for having "sold out" to the Americans. The redeployment, which the Israelis were anxious to carry out in order to reduce their casualties, started late last week, leaving behind it an inevitable power vacuum. The area being evacuated in the Chouf Mountains southeast of Beirut is shared by the Druze and Christians, who have been alternately allies and enemies for centuries. Anticipating the Israeli move, socialist Druze and right-wing Christian militiamen have engaged in escalating clashes for the past ten months.

The latest round of fighting in Beirut was set off by a rivalry over political posters. Two weeks ago, the Christian Phalangists celebrated the first anniversary of the late Bashir Gemayel's election as President by putting up posters of their martyred hero. Last week it was the turn of Beirut's large Shi'ite Muslim community. It launched a poster campaign to honor its spiritual leader, Imam Musa Sadr, who disappeared five years ago during a visit to Libya. On Sunday afternoon, several young men in a predominantly Shi'ite suburb in the south of Beirut were pasting up posters of the Imam when shots were suddenly fired from a passing car, wounding at least one Shi'ite bystander. The Shi'ites maintain that the gunmen were Phalangists who, they say, have lately been venturing into the Shi'ite suburbs with increasing boldness.

In no time, armed members of the Shi'ite Amal organization were in the streets. That night fighting spread throughout the southern suburbs, and the Lebanese army lost control. Shi'ite militiamen attacked a checkpoint manned by U.S. Marines and Lebanese army soldiers, the first attack of any consequence directed at the Marines. Elsewhere that night, Druze and Christians in the Aley and Chouf districts to the southeast of Beirut exchanged sniper and artillery fire, and Druze gunners in the Syrian-held hills dropped rockets and artillery on Christian East Beirut.

The battle lines in the current conflict stem from last year's war in Lebanon. The expulsion of the P.L.O. and the Syrians from Beirut and southern Lebanon deprived the Lebanese Muslims and the Druze, who are members of a religious sect that emerged in the 11th century as an offshoot of Islam, of the allies they needed. When the Phalange-dominated Christian militia known as the Lebanese Forces moved into the Chouf Mountains with the Israelis last year, the Druze viewed the maneuver as an attempt by the Lebanese Christians to seize Druze land. Similarly, the Israelis and later the Lebanese army moved into West Beirut and attempted to disarm the Muslim militias, but they made no comparable effort to disarm the Lebanese Forces militia in East Beirut.

Relations between the government of Amin Gemayel and the Druze and Muslim groups worsened during the long stalemate over Israeli and Syrian withdrawals. When the Lebanese and Israelis signed the withdrawal agreement in May, it was understood that the Israelis would leave at the same time as the Syrian troops still in Lebanon. But the Syrians, strengthened with new Soviet arms, soon made clear that they had no intention of leaving any time soon, and so the Israelis also stayed. Later, when the Israelis began to plan their redeployment toward the south, the U.S. asked Israel for a timetable for its complete withdrawal from Lebanon. The U.S. hoped that this might convince the Lebanese, and particularly the Muslims, that Israel's partial redeployment would not lead to a permanent partition of their country. The U.S. also hoped that such a commitment, which Israel felt it could not make at the time, would ease the dangers following the Israeli pullout from the Beirut area. In the meantime, Gemayel steadfastly refused to discuss national reconciliation with opposition leaders as long as foreign troops remained in Lebanon.

By that time, the Druze militia was receiving strong support from the Syrians in its fight against the Lebanese Forces in the Chouf Mountains. In July, Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt, 36, joined the Syrian-sponsored National Salvation Front, a Lebanese opposition group. He also pressed for a greater political role for the Druze in a nation in which the Christians and Sunni Muslims have traditionally divided power among themselves. Under prodding from the U.S., Gemayel belatedly began a frantic effort to hold discussions with Lebanese community leaders, but he got a cool reception from Muslims and non-Phalangist Christians. Two weeks ago, however, Jumblatt met in Paris with U.S. Special Envoy Robert McFarlane and Gemayel Adviser Wadi Haddad.

Any hope that the meeting would ease tensions was quickly dissipated when the fighting resumed in Lebanon. One day after the death of the two U.S. Marines, five members of the French peacekeeping force were killed in two separate incidents. One soldier was riding in a water truck that was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade; three other legionnaires and a police officer died when the French embassy compound was struck by shells.

As the violence intensified, the Lebanese army sent 7,000 men into Beirut's southern suburbs, which are predominantly Shi'ite. The government soldiers endured intense sniper fire from Amal commandos but managed nonetheless to seize Amal's military headquarters, where they released 15 government soldiers who had been captured the day before. By that time, Amal militiamen had taken to the streets of West Beirut, where they were joined by fighters from the Druze and the smaller Murabitun militias. The myth that West Beirut had been disarmed last year was shattered as masked gunmen appeared with an impressive arsenal of weapons. The militiamen seized one of the government's three TV stations, and for three hours the screen was filled with photographs of Musa Sadr, the assassinated Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt (father of Walid), and the Amal insignia. The militiamen finally left the station after striking a deal with the government to exchange it for their militia headquarters. That night Muslim gunmen were in high spirits as they rode through West Beirut on the hoods of cars, firing into the air as they did during the P.L.O. evacuation from West Beirut a year ago.

With the Muslim militiamen in control of much of West Beirut as well as the main crossing points between the eastern and western sectors of the city, the Lebanese army attacked in force. Lebanese rangers mounted a helicopter assault to reinforce an army position at the Cadmos Hotel, a few hundred yards from the bombed hulk of the old U.S. embassy. Inside the Cadmos were 70 lightly armed U.S. Green Berets, who are in Lebanon to help train the army. U.S. Marines, backed by three naval vessels of the Sixth Fleet, which had moved to within one mile of the Lebanese shore, were ready to launch a rescue effort. As it turned out, their services were not needed.

At dawn Wednesday, three Lebanese army brigades with a total of 10,000 troops began a three-pronged move on West Beirut. Fighting continued all day and all night, with soldiers painstakingly creeping up side streets and alleyways in search of Muslim militiamen. By Thursday morning there were still pockets of resistance, but the army controlled West Beirut.

Two days earlier, when things were going their way, the Muslim militiamen had broadcast over loudspeakers a message to army troops outside the Cadmos Hotel: "To our beloved Lebanese army. We do not want to hurt you. The regime has used you as tools of the Phalangist conspiracy. Do not obey orders! Do not shoot!" It was one of many efforts by the militias to persuade army troops to break ranks by dividing along sectarian lines. Such a development was not unexpected. Earlier hi the summer, a prominent Arab journalist in Beirut had predicted: "If the army has to fight the Shi'ites, it will break apart like a watermelon dropped on the pavement." Not only did the Lebanese army perform creditably last week, but, more important, it did not split apart. For the first time in eight years, the Lebanese government had an army that it could count upon.

On Wednesday evening, President Gemayel appealed for a national reconciliation and invited eleven prominent political figures, including the three leaders of the Salvation Front, to meet with him. After the army's successful campaign in West Beirut, however, Walid Jumblatt was in no mood to talk with the leaders of a government whose real ami, he said, was to "butcher the Muslims." Like everyone else in Lebanon, he knew that the army's next big test would come as the Israeli forces withdraw from the rugged Chouf and Aley regions where the Christians and the Druze live side by side in perpetual tension. Vowed Jumblatt: "We will defend ourselves with the weapons we have, and when Israel pulls out, the battle for the mountains will begin."

To the south of Beirut, the roads were clogged with frightened Lebanese carrying whatever belongings they could. Some were Muslims fleeing from the fighting in West Beirut. Others were Christians who were fed up with the shelling of East Beirut and, fearful of the future, moving to areas that will still be controlled by the Israelis after the troop redeployment. But, paradoxically, Beirut was basking in the radiance of a Mediterranean summer day. As in the city's crises of the past, shops were beginning to reopen. Bread was scarce but, miraculously, fresh flowers were on sale again. As a Western resident remarked, "The Lebanese at least have savoir-faire, if no common sense." The sound of tinkling glass could be heard on many streets as residents cleaned up after the week's havoc. Along the Corniche, as U.S. Marines in battle dress watched impassively, fishermen and swimmers were out early in the brilliant sunshine, demonstrating the extraordinary resilience of the city once again. --By William E. Smith. Reported by William Stewart and Roberto Suro Beirut

With reporting by William Stewart, Roberto Suro, Beirut This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.