Edge of Destruction

Each time embattled Beirut tries to pick up the pieces after a makeshift truce dampens political sectarian violence, something happens to rekindle the fighting and paralyze the city. Last week, only four days after the start of another ceasefire, the multifactional civil war between right-wing Christian Phalangists and left-wing Moslems raged anew. In one day there were at least 200 kidnapings. Two of the victims were Americans: Charles Gallagher and William Dykes, the director and deputy director of the regional center of the U.S. Information Service. The first foreigners to be kidnaped during the latest troubles, they were captured at gunpoint, apparently by leftist Moslems in the territory controlled by the Nasserite Organization Corrective Movement. At week's end there had been no ransom demand or word of their fate.

The latest round of fighting had been sparked by the discovery of the mutilated body of a Moslem cab driver, killed in the previous week's battles. Mortars, rockets and machine guns exploded in one of the noisiest and most prolonged cannonades yet to afflict Beirut. An estimated 150 died and 450 lay wounded. As armed bands disrupted the city, Beirutis had to deal with so-called flying roadblocks that were set up and later torn down in hit-and-run fashion.

Incapable of controlling the semifeudal political lords and their private militias who are responsible for the violence, Premier Rashid Karami faced increasing pressure to resign. He tentatively increased patrols by army troops in Beirut's downtown business sector and at all entrances to the city. Because most commanding officers in the 18,000-man army are Christian, Moslems fiercely oppose large-scale use of the military. Karami so far agrees and has warned that bringing in the army could destroy the country. But as the righting continued unabated, it seemed that the country was already approaching the edge of destruction.

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