The Blasting of Beirut

An all-out Syrian effort to crush the Christians

It has become another Stalin-grad." So said a weary Lebanese Christian, preparing to abandon his beloved city of Beirut--perhaps forever. Once again the sectarian violence that has savaged Lebanon for the past five years had erupted in a round of destruction and death. In an all-out effort to crush right-wing Christian militiamen with whom it has been fighting a months-long war, the 30,000-man Syrian peace-keeping force launched a devastating block-by-block assault on Christian areas of Beirut. By week's end it had left at least 800 dead and thousands more wounded. As an unmistakable signal of warning to Syrian forces, Israeli warships bombarded Syrian positions in the Lebanese capital, underscoring Jerusalem's determination to prevent the "genocide" of its Christian allies.

The brutal war between the Syrians and the Christians was not directly related to the Middle East peace talks that begin in Washington this week. Nonetheless, a substantial Israeli military intervention on behalf of their embattled Lebanese clients--particularly if it led to a confrontation with the Syrian army --would clearly threaten the outcome of those negotiations. So far, the Israelis' reaction to the fighting has been limited. They have provided the Christians with medical aid, and presumably some weapons, but they have not bombed and strafed Palestinian and Muslim strongholds as in previous Lebanese flare-ups.

The battle began on Sept. 30, when a 50-man Syrian patrol was pinned down by snipers in Christian-dominated East Beirut. In an effort to free the trapped patrol, Syrian artillery units let loose the heaviest barrages seen in the city since the Lebanese civil war came to an official end two years ago. "Never in the uninterrupted years of war since 1973 has there been such bitter fighting as in the past week," reported TIME Correspondent Dean Brelis from Beirut. "Throughout the eastern part of the city there is a continuous barrage of exploding shells and rockets. The road crossing through the old 'green line' separating the Christian and Muslim areas of Beirut is impassable.

"Streets are filled with the dead and dying, their moans drowned by the ceaseless thunder of the exploding shells. Somehow, a voice rises above the din, proclaiming, 'I can hear myself dying.' Said one resident of the strife-torn city who has vowed never to return: I shall pray for those who are fighting. Prayer is the only hope that they have left.'

"After six days of shelling, the guns are still not silent, and there are reports that people in East Beirut are starving. A woman reached by telephone describes what is happening: 'We live in the cellar of our building. There are some nuns with us and they pray, but the bombs keep falling. We finished our last tin of corned beef --one spoonful for each person. There is only half a gallon of water left, but we don't dare go up into the streets. When a dying dog came into our shelter, a boy said he would take it away and bury it. His mother told him not to, but he wouldn't listen. He picked up the dog and went up the steps. He never came back. Maybe the Lord has decided that this is the end of the world.' The telephone line went dead."

The statistics of destruction were appalling. More than 35,000 houses were demolished in the shelling, which soon spread from the city to the hills north of Beirut. The U.S. Embassy was hit by shells, and two Marine guards were wounded. Some two-thirds of the 600,000 Christian residents fled, leaving behind thousands of others cowering in the basements of wrecked buildings without food, water, electricity or communications with the outside world. Unable to minister to the wounded, hospitals turned into morgues, reeking with the stench of decomposing bodies. Said a shaken President Elias Sarkis, in a terse summation of the carnage: "The latest events have left almost no family without a casualty and have ruined almost every house."

The Syrians were also suffering badly. More than 200 members of the occupying force were reported killed in deadly artillery duels with the 12,000-man militias of the Christian National Liberal and Phalange parties. The Christians' ability to keep up a stiff resistance depended on the outcome of battles over two bridges linking East Beirut with the main coastal roads heading north. If the Syrians cut them, the militiamen would be trapped, with no chance for supplies from Israel or escape.

From a bunker near the presidential palace--which itself came under fire from misdirected Syrian guns aiming at Christian strongholds in the hillsides--Sarkis made desperate efforts to invoke a truce. He announced a plan to replace the apolitical "Cabinet of technocrats" that has ruled Lebanon for two years with a new government composed of Christian and Muslim leaders. By week's end Sarkis, who had earlier declared that Lebanon was "on the verge of collapse," had been rudely rebuffed by virtually every important faction in Lebanese politics. Declared former President Camille Chamoun, Christian leader of the National Liberals: "There is nothing left but for Sarkis to resign."

International efforts to halt the fighting were similarly troubled. In the same curt tones with which he had rejected a U.S. plan for bringing peace to Lebanon two weeks ago, Syrian President Hafez Assad rejected a French proposal for installing a United Nations buffer force between the warring sides. "It is not logical that a buffer should be established between troublemakers and mutineers on the one hand and the legitimate forces on the other," snapped Assad, whose troops in Lebanon are nominally under Sarkis' command.

Following that declaration, Assad departed for Moscow, where he hoped to persuade the Soviets to supply him with more arms and ammunition. The mission was fresh evidence of the heavy costs Syria had incurred since it intervened in Lebanon two years ago. Ironically, Assad's forces moved in to prevent the defeat of the Christian armies by radical Muslim and Palestinian commandos. Since then, however, the Syrians and the Christians have become bitter enemies because the Christians persist--against Assad's advice--in their efforts to partition Lebanon along sectarian lines. Since February more than 650 Syrian soldiers have perished in running battles with the militiamen, who receive guns and training from Israel. Moreover, the Lebanese fighting has forced Assad to redeploy many of his best troops from Syria's border with Israel along the Golan Heights. Only one Syrian armored division now stands between the massive Israeli war machine and Damascus, a mere 40 miles away.

Assad fears that the Christians might eventually link the portions of southern Lebanon under their control into a pro-Israeli buffer zone. Conversely, Israel fears that the defeat of Christian forces may leave Lebanon in the hands of radical Muslim leftists and Palestinians--in effect creating a new "confrontation" state. TIME has learned that two months ago, Assad attempted to cut his losses in Lebanon by bluntly demanding that the Christians make a final choice between Israel and the Arab states. Chamoun's reply: "We choose the Israelis." At that point Assad decided to cripple the militias by Oct. 28, when the legal mandate given to the peace-keeping force by the 21-nation Arab league expires.

In an effort to stiffen Assad's resolve to stay on in Lebanon, Iraq's radical regime offered last week to send its own troops to the Golan Heights. Assad, who has quarreled bitterly with the Iraqis, was bound to reject their dubious offer. His determination to solve his Lebanese dilemma was probably hardened by the success of the Camp David peace talks, which foreshadowed a separate peace between Egypt and Israel. Such a development would leave Israel free to concentrate its massive firepower on Syria and other "rejectionist" Arab states.

The greatest danger was that the conflict would provoke Israeli intervention on behalf of the reeling Christians. Seeking to prevent the war from spreading, Jimmy Carter sent an appeal to Assad in Moscow, urging him toward "a separation of forces." He followed up by asking Israeli Premier Menachem Begin to refrain from intervening in the conflict. Carter also asked Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev to exert his "considerable influence in the area" to help arrange a truce. At the urging of the U.S., the U.N. Security Council adopted a cease-fire resolution.

At week's end the Syrians announced that they would finally stop the shelling, so that Assad and Sarkis could work out a permanent solution to the conflict at a meeting in Damascus. But truces in the Lebanese conflict have been notoriously fragile. From his stronghold in Beirut, Christian Leader Chamoun had earlier vowed that his militia would "continue fighting until the day the last Syrian has left Lebanon." Muslim groups were organizing a general strike to protest the use of Lebanese troops in any effort to stop the Syrian annihilation of their Christian foes. For Lebanon, once a citadel of tranquillity and prosperity in the troubled Middle East, peace still seemed very far away.

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