Lebanon a Country Out of Control

By William E. Smith.

For at least a decade, things have been gradually falling apart in Lebanon. Last week they collapsed further into chaos, a situation of such seriousness that Israeli Deputy Prime Minister David Levy was moved to declare, "A spirit of madness is passing over that war-torn country, where reason and common sense are not used, but rather suicide, blood, murder."

The madness came in a variety of forms. In southern Lebanon, Israel's measured troop withdrawal has bogged down in an increasingly violent guerrilla war conducted by Shi'ite Muslim activists who have been attacking the departing troops at every opportunity. Those assaults, and Israeli countermeasures, last week claimed at least 60 lives in some of the bloodiest clashes since resistance to the Israeli occupation first surfaced 21 months ago.

Elsewhere in Lebanon the combined Christian militias, known as the Lebanese Forces, rebelled against the country's Christian President, Amin Gemayel, raising doubts about the future of Gemayel's frail government. In response, Syrian troops and armor were seen moving on the northern fringes of the Christian enclave, and Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas declared that his country could not "stand idly by" if Gemayel was threatened.

As the chaos deepened, Washington's anxiety for the safety of Americans in the area grew: 29 members of the U.S. embassy staff in Beirut were flown by helicopter to Cyprus. The precaution did not protect Terry Anderson, 37, Beirut bureau chief of the Associated Press, who was kidnaped by four armed gunmen late last week. In separate incidents, two British citizens had been abducted earlier. Four other Americans seized by militants over the past year have yet to be released. Still in the country are an estimated 1,400 Americans. The U.S. aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower and the guided- missile cruiser Mississippi were standing by off the Lebanese coast, prepared to carry out a larger evacuation. Observed a Western diplomat in Beirut: "We are moving into dangerous, uncharted areas. The violence is spiraling out of control."

As it does, the Israelis are beginning to view the Shi'ite opposition in southern Lebanon as an armed struggle of much broader scope than they had previously thought. Some Labor ministers in the government, including Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, are in fact in favor of completing the pullout earlier than this summer's planned deadline. That mood was reinforced early in the week when Israeli soldiers in an army convoy drove into Lebanon after spending the Sabbath in Israel. Hardly had the vehicles crossed the border when a red pickup truck with Lebanese plates slowly approached the column and, as the Israelis passed, exploded. An open "safari" truck was reduced to a pile of smoldering metal, with twelve of the troopers aboard killed. It was the worst single loss the Israeli forces had suffered in southern Lebanon in 16 months. The fact that the bombing occurred only a few hundred yards north of the Israeli border town of Metulla reinforced Israeli fears that the Shi'ite militants aspire to replace the Palestine Liberation Organization as a standing threat to Israel's northern settlements.

Responsibility for the bombing was quickly claimed by three disparate extremist groups, all based in Lebanon and supported by Iran. According to the shadowy Islamic Jihad, the assault was supposed to have taken place in Metulla. "A tactical mistake by one of our colleagues forced us to blow it up ahead of schedule," a caller told a Western news agency in Beirut. "But in the future, the whole world will see that we can get to the heart of Israel itself." The various groups claimed that the attack was a response to two bombings in Lebanon the previous week. One, in the village of Marakah, had taken a dozen lives. The second, in a densely populated Shi'ite suburb of Beirut, had killed 75 people and injured more than 250. While any of several groups could have been responsible, Shi'ite leaders blamed Israel and vowed revenge.

The day after the assault on its convoy, the Israeli army attacked the Shi'ite town of Zrariyah (pop. 9,000) with tanks and armored personnel carriers. Several hundred Israeli troops met some resistance from Lebanese soldiers and Shi'ite militiamen, but the column continued on into Zrariyah. Automobiles were machine-gunned, and the armored vehicles rolled over several cars, crushing them like discarded tin cans. In one destroyed vehicle there was at least one passenger, but he appeared to have been killed earlier by gunfire.

The Israelis then began a house-to-house search in Zrariyah. All men between the ages of 16 and 60 were hauled off to the central square, where a hooded informer helped identify suspected guerrillas. At the end of the day, as many as 200 men were taken behind Israeli lines for further interrogation. When correspondents arrived in Zrariyah, twelve hours after the Israelis had entered the village, bodies still lay in the streets leading into the town. Wailing women milled about in grief and despair. A freshly painted sign on a wall read, in Arabic, THE REVENGE OF THE I.D.F. (for Israel Defense Forces). According to the Israelis, 34 guerrillas had been killed in the raid. + Villagers claimed that only half a dozen of the victims had carried guns.

The raid appeared to have ended Zrariyah's role as a staging point for guerrillas heading into Israeli-occupied territory to the south. Admitted an Amal militiaman: "We shouldn't have been caught in this way. With so many people in their hands, the Israelis were bound to gather intelligence about our supply routes."

But if the assault on Zrariyah was a blow to the resistance movement, it brought little respite for the Israelis. The next day, two Israeli soldiers were killed in an ambush. The same day, a car exploded on a road south of Tyre, killing five Lebanese civilians; the vehicle had apparently been heading for an Israeli outpost or convoy, but blew up prematurely. In Zrariyah, the governor of southern Lebanon, Halim Fayad, issued a warning: "New suicide attacks will be launched. We are ready to avenge this massacre."

The pattern of attack and counterattack was as relentless as it was bloody. Many in Israel consider the adventure in Lebanon a disastrous and costly mistake, and the national unity government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres is determined to get the I.D.F. out of Lebanon by summer. The I.D.F.'s orders, as Peres described them to the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee last week, are "to stay put not one minute longer than necessary," but he later added: "The terrorists will not dictate our steps."

At the United Nations, the U.S. used its veto to defeat a Lebanese resolution condemning Israel's actions in southern Lebanon. The U.S. argued that the resolution did not take proper notice of the Israeli withdrawal and the cycle of domestic Lebanese violence. The veto angered Arabs in Lebanon and elsewhere, and spurred renewed threats against American lives and property. Security was tightened at American embassies in many Arab capitals, particularly Beirut. With the American naval vessels standing by offshore, the U.S. issued its announcement on Thursday that most diplomats were being withdrawn temporarily, leaving only a handful in Beirut, including Ambassador Reginald Bartholomew. The majority of Americans in Lebanon are naturalized citizens of Lebanese descent, and many are longtime residents who want to stay on.

That may prove to be a hard promise to keep. Until now, the Maronite Christians have remained more or less united behind President Gemayel. Last week, however, Gemayel's Phalange Party was suddenly challenged by a senior officer in the Lebanese Forces, which are dominated by the Phalangist militia. Both the party and the militia were founded by the late Sheik Pierre Gemayel, and the Lebanese Forces were formerly led by the late Bashir Gemayel, the son of Pierre and brother of Amin. The challenger was one of the Lebanese Forces commanders, Samir Geagea, 32, who seemed bent not only on taking over the militia but on changing Amin Gemayel's allegedly pro-Syrian policy. Late last week, Geagea and seven other militia commanders formed a collective leadership to direct their attack against the President.

Geagea is reported to have won the backing of Solange Gemayel, Bashir's widow. One of his chief allies is another militia commander, Elias Hobeika, who led the Phalangist forces into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in September 1982, where they murdered an estimated 700 to 800 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. The following year, Geagea helped direct the Christian assault on Druze villages in the mountains. The Druze fought off the Christian forces, and on one occasion Geagea had to be rescued by an Israeli helicopter.

Like many of the Maronites, the pro-Israeli Geagea is outraged by Gemayel's growing reliance on Syria, which has played an increasingly important role in Lebanon since the American withdrawal in early 1984. In political terms, the President probably had little choice but to turn to Syria. Many Maronites believe, however, that Israel, not Syria, should be the Christian community's natural ally.

The break came last week after Geagea's militiamen refused a government request to dismantle a checkpoint and toll station that they maintained on the coastal highway to the north of Beirut. The commander of the Lebanese Forces, Fuad Abu Nader, 28, promptly removed Geagea from his post. Geagea's ouster, supported by Syria, quickly stirred dissension within the Lebanese Forces. Abu Nader tried to end the rift by announcing that in the future the Lebanese Forces would function independently of the Phalange Party, but his move came too late. Geagea's militiamen had already seized several Lebanese Forces barracks and at week's end controlled Christian East Beirut and much of the territory to the north of the capital.

President Gemayel deemed the crisis so serious that he canceled plans to attend the funeral of Soviet Leader Konstantin Chernenko and began a series of meetings with other Christian leaders, including Maronite Patriarch Antonie Pierre Cardinal Khoraiche. Geagea turned down an invitation to attend. Shortly thereafter, the Syrians began to make their own menacing moves.

The country may be falling apart, but the relative positions of the occupying powers, Israel and Syria, probably remain about the same. In the south, the Israelis are continuing their painful withdrawal, while the Syrians are profiting from the activities of the Shi'ite militants. In the Christian north, a pro-Israeli faction is posing a threat. If the situation there gets any worse, the Syrians may feel obliged to rescue the Gemayel government by military means, thereby angering Syria's Lebanese Muslim allies and setting the stage for still another round of political and sectarian violence.

With reporting by John Borrell/Beirut and Roland Flamini/Jerusalem