Shi'Ite Against Shi'ite

In the killing ground that is Beirut, where savage death has become commonplace, the brawls between this faction and that stopped making headline news long ago. But last week's clashes between the pro-Iranian Hizballah and its more moderate Shi'ite rival, the pro-Syrian Amal, were horrific even by Lebanese standards. In six days of warfare, Hizballah militiamen drove Amal fighters out of large portions of Beirut's southern suburbs. Using tanks, mortars, rockets and artillery, the combatants blasted buildings to rubble and sent civilians scurrying for refuge carrying their belongings on their backs. Snipers fired at anything that moved, including ambulances. At some hospitals, fighters forced doctors at gunpoint to operate on wounded colleagues, and battles broke out in the corridors.

By the time a truce was declared Thursday, at least 188 were dead and hundreds more wounded, making it the worst eruption of violence since Syrian troops moved into West Beirut in early 1987. The hostilities left the surprisingly strong Hizballah fighters in control of 70% of the disputed territory, a 16-sq.-mi. district of crowded slums that is home to 250,000 Shi'ites. Fighting was suspended after telephone consultations between Syrian President Hafez Assad and Iranian President Ali Khamenei. But the next day, the fragile alliance between Damascus and Tehran was taxed as Hizballah fighters broke the truce, drawing Syrian troops into the conflict.

The victory of Hizballah came after it had suffered a series of military setbacks in Shi'ite-dominated Southern Lebanon, first at the hands of Amal, then Israel, which killed as many as 40 of its guerrillas in a raid two weeks ago. Hizballah's new power will complicate efforts to free the 16 remaining foreign hostages in Lebanon, most of whom are thought to be held in the Beirut suburbs by kidnapers with ties to the militant Shi'ite faction.