The Military Raises the Risk of Wider War

The civil war that has transformed Lebanon into a scarred battlefield took a sudden and risky turn for the worse last week. Two Lebanese air force Hawker-Hunter fighter jets strafed and rocketed Moslem and Palestinian troops that were besieging Damur, a rightist-held town a few miles south of Beirut International Airport. The attack represented the first time that Lebanese armed forces had plunged openly into major combat since the shooting began nine months ago.

The air force foray heightened the possibility that the Palestine Liberation Organization might enter the Lebanese war in a major way. While some smaller Palestinian organizations have joined in the fighting on the Moslem side, the moderate P.L.O. leadership has so far tried to stay out of the hostilities. It has not wanted to dissipate its strength by fighting in Lebanon. But P.L.O. Leader Yasser Arafat warned that his group might not be able to pursue a "policy of moderation" much longer. If they cannot, the Lebanese right and the P.L.O. may become locked into such vicious fighting that Syria might feel compelled to intervene militarily on behalf of the Palestinians. This in turn could well trigger an armed response from Israel, thus threatening to ignite a new general war in the Middle East.

A Lebanese military spokesman described the Damur air sortie as an attempt to help ground forces recover army vehicles seized in a Moslem-leftist ambush. Orders for the attack apparently came from the Lebanese army commander, Major General Hanna Saeed, a Maronite Christian. Premier Rashid Karami, a Moslem who is also Minister of Defense, tried to halt the strike when Saeed telephoned him that air action had been ordered. Karami's policy since the civil war has been to try to keep Lebanon's 18,000-member armed forces neutral. He has feared that because the officer corps is predominantly Christian, military intervention in the fighting would inevitably favor the Christian right-wing side.

Famine War. The Moslem siege of Damur was part of what the Lebanese call the famine war. It began in early January, when Christian forces blockaded two Palestinian refugee camps, Tal al Zaatar and Jisr al Basha. A third camp, Dbayeh, was attacked and captured last week. Christian spokesmen insist that they were not trying to starve out the 30,000 inhabitants of the camps but simply attempting to pinch off shipments of arms. Many observers in Beirut believe the blockades are intended to dramatize the role the Palestinians play as a "state within a state" in Lebanon while the United Nations Security Council debate on the Middle East is in progress. A major Christian condition for a cease-fire is that the government demonstrate a clear control over the activities of the Lebanon-based Palestinian guerrillas before meeting the Moslems' demands for political reforms.

Moslem and leftist militiamen responded to the rightist blockades with sieges against Christian villages. In the north, they surrounded Zgharta, the home town of Christian President Suleiman Franjieh; farther south, tough mountain warriors of the Moslem Druze sect pushed down the strategic coastal road into Damur.

In Beirut, meanwhile, the seaside hotel district was raked by mortar and rocket fire for the third time in three months. The nearby U.S. embassy is sued steel helmets to staffers and fer ried them to and from work in armored limousines. Fighting also swept through the city's financial district, and got so close to Beirut Airport that the facility closed down for the first time in the civil war. By week's end the recent fighting brought the war's toll to over 9,000 dead.

Despite the fighting, Lebanon's Christian-Moslem Cabinet managed to hold its regular session at midweek, after which Premier Karami declared, "I'm getting all warring parties to accept a compromise settlement to bring the bitter fight to an end." The passions that divide Lebanon's factions have shattered a score of cease-fires so far, how ever, and the air force's entry into the fighting further weakens the already slim possibility of a lasting truce. Syria's armed forces chief of staff, Major Gen eral Hikmat Shehabi, arrived in Beirut just before the strike at Damur to try to help resolve the crisis. His and other Arab efforts seemed to bear some small fruit: As this week began, Premier Karami announced yet another cease fire. But it was doubtful that the new truce would prove any less fragile than its short-lived predecessors.

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