On the Road from Damascus

Both TIME'S Middle East Correspondent Wilton Wynn and Athens Reporter Dean Brelis were with the Syrian forces as they drove toward Beirut last week. Excerpts from their eyewitness accounts:

The town of Sofar, 45 minutes' driving time from Beirut in the cool Lebanon mountains, has long been a favorite summer resort, both for wealthy Lebanese and Arabs from neighboring lands. It was there last week that the advancing Syrians met their first real resistance. On Tuesday, reports Wynn, the town was battle-scarred. Along the Beirut-Damascus highway, corrugated shutters of shop after shop were curled up from the shelling. Many of the cypress trees that once sheltered vacationing strollers had been smashed to splinters. Testimony to the Palestinian resistance was provided by three burned-out tanks that lay beside the road.

On the highway and on the hills flanking it was a massive concentration of tanks, transport, bulldozers, communications vehicles and Jeeps. Along the route I saw at least 200 tanks, and no doubt many more were parked beyond my vision. About a dozen miles from Beirut, I walked to a point where a phalanx of tanks lined the rim of a hill, their guns pointing down to another resort town, Bhamdoun. A Syrian officer stood atop one of the tanks, and, as we talked, machine guns mounted on the next tank began blazing away. Leftist forces still held Bhamdoun, and the Syrians were shooting at any suspicious movements to keep them off balance.

The Syrians were digging in just short of Bhamdoun, waiting for reinforcements and fresh supplies. I asked a major about their next move. "In three days," he boasted, "I will be able to drive you to Beirut."

The drive to Beirut is normally a pleasant three-hour trip, but there was a lonely feeling the morning I left Damascus, cabled Brelis. Once beyond the city limits, I began running into military convoys, also headed for Beirut. First glance suggested rear-echelon troops; then several big trucks appeared hauling empty trailers--the type that haul out crippled tanks. I began studying the faces of the mechanics in the back of the trucks. There was no singing, but some of the solemn young draftees looked as if they were enjoying their work; others seemed locked in thoughts about other places they would rather be.

In the cold mountain passes across the border, Syrian infantrymen were bundled up in winter-issue overcoats. As I drove nearer to Beirut, the army seemed to be everywhere. Several damaged tanks--three bearing scars of rocket hits--were on flat-bed trailer trucks heading back toward the border; Red Crescent ambulances raced by with wounded in the back. Scores of Russian T-62 tanks and artillery were dug in on ridges. Every so often the troops would turn up their transistor radios, and the sounds of popular Arabic songs brought smiles to tough expressions. The litter of empty shell casings stacked neatly by buildings showed that, when there had been fighting, it had been fierce, quick, terrible.

At the Syrian front line--roughly twelve miles from Beirut's sea front when I visited it--there were no preparations for an assault. The Syrian area commander said that the operation had gone ahead precisely on schedule.

Moving eastward through an area of rough cliffs and canyons known as The Barouk, I gradually encountered Lebanese elements. One stretch of the road and surrounding tactical points were in control of Leftist Leader Kamal Jumblatt's supporters; the next few miles were in the hands of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, then Fatah, then Jumblatt's men and so on. The areas seemed like ministates. Every mile or so, I encountered surprisingly young men cradling polished AK-47s, rocket launchers and sundry other weapons; shoulder patches identified the units to which they belonged. There is no point in this land that is not under someone's gun. There is no exact way of knowing into whose area you are heading and where it changes--but they know.

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