Showdown in Tripoli

By James Kelly

U.S. warships arrive, Israel and Syria mobilize, and Arafat is cornered

On one afternoon the barrage grew so ferocious that rockets hailed down at the rate of 60 a minute. For several terrible hours, every second brought a flash of light from Syrian positions south and east of Tripoli, then a dull thump and a puff of smoke as the shells hit targets in the Baddawi refugee camp and the lower slopes of Turbul mountain north of the Lebanese city. Every so often a round strayed and hit Tripoli itself, crashing into a building or cratering a street.

Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, seemed to be everywhere, showing up at the city's Islamic Hospital to console victims, inspecting loyalist redoubts, embracing fellow refugees as if the end had come. Sometimes it almost did: 90 seconds after an Arafat visit in the district of Al Zahriyeh, a shell whooshed in and destroyed the spot on which he had been standing. Nonetheless, the grizzled warrior vowed to keep fighting. "I cannot leave while my volunteers are facing death daily," Arafat said. "I am not a President. I am a freedom fighter."

For more than a week, the durable chieftain and some 4,000 diehard supporters fought off a savage offensive by an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Syrian-backed guerrillas in and around the northern port city of Tripoli. According to Abu Mousa, leader of the rebel faction that mounted the assault, it was meant only to persuade Arafat to enter a "dialogue of reform" with P.L.O. dissidents who oppose his policies. The battle, in reality, was nothing less than a crude move by Syria to squelch Arafat once and for all and seize control of the P.L.O. Faced with the gloomy choice of fleeing Lebanon or surrendering, Arafat elected to stay and wage battle. Yet no matter how long he holds out, the siege last week seemed to presage his eclipse as a prime player in Middle Eastern politics. His predicament leaves the future of the P.L.O. cloudy and serves as a sad reminder that despite Arafat's years in power, the Palestinian people are no closer to realizing their dream of a homeland than they ever were.

The showdown in Tripoli was played out against a backdrop of rising tensions. Two U.S. aircraft carriers, the Independence and the Kennedy, joined the Eisenhower off the coast of Lebanon last week. Israel, meanwhile, announced a mobilization drill of its reservists; the last time a public call to duty occurred was in 1978. Both countries described their actions as routine, but the activity fed speculation about possible retaliation for the suicidal attacks against the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut* and an Israeli military base in Tyre. In response, Syrian President Hafez Assad placed his country's armed forces on alert too, including the calling up of an estimated 100,000 reservists. Washington and Jerusalem both publicly assured Assad that they had no intention of attacking Syria, but a suspicious Assad surely noted that the U.S. and Israel had agreed to forge closer strategic ties and that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir would be visiting Washington shortly after Thanksgiving to discuss the details.

Just how edgy the region had become was dramatized when Damascus announced that antiaircraft guns had fired at a Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter jet on a reconnaissance mission over Syrian-held positions in eastern Lebanon. The plane, one of four on patrol at the time, was not hit and flew safely back to the Eisenhower. Although U.S. officials down-played the incident, it was reportedly the first time the Syrians had fired on U.S. warplanes.

Even the Soviet Union, which has bankrolled Syria's arsenal, expressed alarm over the spreading violence. At a banquet honoring Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam in Moscow late last week, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko said that "we consider as extremely urgent the need to overcome strife and restore unity in the ranks of the Palestinian movement." The message to Assad: ease up on Arafat.

The P.L.O. chairman's decline began in the summer of 1982, when the Israeli army routed his troops in southern Lebanon and drove Arafat and his fighters out of Beirut. His dalliance with King Hussein of Jordan last April over President Reagan's September 1982 peace initiative, which called for the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to be linked to Jordan, enraged Assad and convinced him that Arafat must be reined in. The chance came in May, when Arafat promoted several controversial commanders within Al-Fatah, the guerrilla group that he founded and that still accounts for about 80% of the P.L.O.'s strength. Fanned by Syria, the rebellion in Arafat's ranks spread during the summer. In June, the Syrian President expelled Arafat from Damascus; gradually, troops loyal to the P.L.O. chief were pushed out of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and into Tripoli. In September, Arafat slipped into the city to prepare for a rumored Syrian offensive.

On Nov. 3, the rumors turned into fact. At 5:30 a.m., as the city slept, Syrian artillery shells slammed into the refugee camps of Baddawi and Nahr al Barid on the outskirts of Tripoli. Three columns of attackers advanced on Arafat's forces, trapping the chairman and his men between the hills and the sea. The rebels included not only Fatah dissidents but guerrillas from Syrian-and Libyan-sponsored factions within the P.L.O. Though Damascus denied direct involvement, Syrian guns and tanks supplied the firepower while Syrian Defense Minister Major General Mustafa Tlas coordinated strategy with Abu Mousa.

Two days after the beginning of the offensive, Nahr al Barid fell and the noose tightened. Last Monday, Arafat and his top advisers moved into Tripoli, igniting fears among the populace of 500,000 that the city would soon be swallowed up by the fighting. The Arafat loyalists set up artillery and rocket launchers in a grove of orange trees near the waterfront quarter and fired at the troops advancing on Baddawi, a dreary, ramshackle warren of cinder-block houses that normally is home to 10,000 people.

Life in the city ground to a virtual halt. In between bouts of shelling, people rushed out to buy food and find water. Streets were deserted save for motorists looking for an open station and their share of increasingly scarce gasoline. The highway to the south, though guarded by Syrian troops, remained open, allowing thousands of people to stream out of the city and away from what they feared would be a final siege.

Casualty figures were sketchy, but at least several hundred guerrillas and civilians were killed and hundreds more wounded. The mayor and other local leaders pleaded with Arafat to halt the fighting, but they stopped short of publicly asking the P.L.O. chieftain to leave the city. The Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf states, dispatched a delegation to Damascus. A four-day cease-fire was worked out, promptly broke down, then was patched together again. Rashid Karami, a former Lebanese Prime Minister who lives in Tripoli, asked Arafat to quit the area and "leave with all his brothers." The P.L.O. leader flatly rejected the appeal amid reports that the rebels had made their final demand: surrender now and leave Lebanon, or face an all-out assault when the truce expires on Sunday. By week's end shells and rockets again pounded into Baddawi and Tripoli, though the attack was considerably less fierce than in previous days.

Arafat enjoyed one advantage: if fighting spreads, the powerful militia of the Islamic Unification Movement, which controls parts of the city, has vowed to come to his aid. Both sides, however, gave their word to spare Tripoli. Arafat apparently promised not to shell rebel positions from within the city, thus risking return fire, while Abu Mousa pledged not to invade. Nonetheless, rumors floated through the city all week that Arafat was about to flee. On Thursday, Italian Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini announced that the missile launcher Orsa and the destroyer Intrepido stood ready off the Lebanese coast to evacuate Arafat.

Unless the P.L.O. leader is prepared to die, he will have to surrender or face expulsion from Tripoli, either as a condition for another cease-fire or at the anguished city's insistence. He could negotiate a slightly more dignified exit, perhaps by persuading an Arab leader to summon him for talks. Either way, Arafat will find it very difficult to turn flight into a semblance of victory, as he did when he was forced to leave Beirut last year.

The rest of Lebanon also seemed like one long battlefront. After the Tyre bombing, which killed 28 Israelis and 32 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli army closed two bridges across the Awali River, its northern defense line in Lebanon, in effect sealing off the south from the rest of the country. Shi'ite Muslim leaders responded by calling a one-day general strike, shutting down nearly all stores and banks. The Israelis reopened the bridges after four days, but vehicles were inspected so painstakingly that traffic was reduced to a trickle.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Marines stationed at Beirut airport again came under fire. In the heaviest fighting in the capital since last September's ceasefire, a nightlong fusillade of mortars and grenades rained down on Alpha Company, stationed northeast of the airfield. The attack, which came from a predominantly Shi'ite Muslim suburb, closed the airport for two hours and hastened the redeployment of 150 to 200 Marines to offshore ships.

That still left 1,400 Marines at the airport. The biggest concern: rocket launchers manned by pro-Iranian Lebanese had been trucked into the hills above Beirut and could be capable of hitting Marine positions. According to the reports, the batteries were brought in about a month ago, before the bombing of the Marine compound. Washington has been conferring with the Lebanese government about whether to remove the launchers through negotiation or through a pre-emptive strike, but one Lebanese official left no doubt about the result. Said he: "They have to come out."

Talk of military action raised a more ominous question: whether to retaliate for the Oct. 23 bombing of the Marine headquarters. In his TV speech three weeks ago, Reagan pledged that "those who directed this atrocity must be dealt justice, and they will be." Some U.S. diplomats argue that reprisal would deter future attacks. Said one: "They ought to know the price of another attempt."

Yet retribution carries risks. Although the evidence points to a pair of fanatical Shi'ite Muslim splinter groups with ties to Syria and Iran, the U.S. is not certain exactly who gave the orders. Even if the culprits were known, Washington would not be sure how to strike back. A commando raid or air strike against their headquarters in the Lebanese city of Baalbek, for example, could mushroom into a battle with the Syrians, who control that part of the country.

The U.S., moreover, would reap a bitter diplomatic harvest. Israel, which responded to the Tyre explosion by bombing Palestinian and Syrian military positions, usually can hit back and stay within the brackets of the Middle East military equation. For a superpower, such a response would reverberate dangerously and complicate Washington's other goals. Meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam last week, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned that Britain would not support U.S. strikes against Syrian targets. U.S. Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who was appointed to his post two weeks ago, planned to stop in London to see Thatcher before flying on to the Middle East this week.

Perhaps the best argument against retaliation is that it would upset the national reconciliation talks among Lebanon's factions. Before the country's warlords adjourned their meetings in Geneva two weeks ago, they agreed to "freeze" the Israeli-Lebanese troop withdrawal agreement signed last May and instead to focus attention on reshaping the Lebanese political structure, which is now tilted in favor of the Christians. During the recess, President Amin Gemayel is sounding out the U.S. and Arab leaders on how to amend the accord and still satisfy both Israel and Syria. This week he is scheduled to meet with Assad in Damascus. Jerusalem insists it will not pull out its soldiers unless the accord is observed, while Damascus has said that its 62,000 troops will stay until the pact is scrapped.

While Gemayel engaged in his delicate tinkering, a 14-member commission in Geneva reached some "tentative conclusions" on constitutional changes. Among the proposals: a parliament with upper and lower houses would replace the single-chamber legislature and be equally divided between Muslims and Christians, instead of the current ratio in favor of the Christians. The posts of President and Prime Minister would continue to go to a Maronite Christian and a Sunni Muslim, respectively, but a vice presidency would be created and be reserved for a Muslim. Although heartened by the results, committee members stressed that these were suggestions that must be approved by Lebanese leaders when they reconvene, probably in early December.

Syria was the undisputed winner of the latest round of Middle East maneuvering. By strangling Arafat, Assad hopes to become the chief spokesman for the Palestinian cause. That, coupled with his objective of gaining de facto control over Lebanese affairs, would fulfill Assad's dream: to become the predominant leader in the Arab world.

In response to the dramatic improvement in Syria's position, the Reagan Administration has decided to draw closer to Israel. There is irony in that decision: in 1981 Alexander Haig, who was then Secretary of State, tried to build an anti-Soviet "strategic consensus" that would include Israel as well as such moderate Arab nations as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. When Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, relations between Washington and Jerusalem nosedived. Things did not improve when then Prime Minister Menachem Begin summarily rejected Reagan's plan to link the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to Jordan.

In the past months, however, Secretary of State George Shultz has become profoundly concerned about the growing influence of the Soviet-backed Syrians at a time when Israel seemed to be weakened by internal problems and divisions. His concern also had a personal dimension: he felt insulted by the manner in which Assad had harangued him during a meeting last July and betrayed by Syria's refusal to withdraw its troops from Lebanon after he had got Israel to agree to do so. The replacement of Ariel Sharon by Moshe Arens as Defense Minister and of Begin by Shamir has also helped improve relations. In a gesture toward Washington, Arens reversed his predecessor's policy by offering to share intelligence on how U.S. and Soviet weapons performed during the Lebanese invasion.

Shultz, however, faced opposition from Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who has frequently argued that closer U.S.-Israeli ties would imperil American attempts to strengthen relations with the Arab world. Nevertheless, at a meeting last month, Reagan sided with Shultz and signed National Security Decision Directive 111.

Under the terms of the document, the U.S. will offer to help finance development of the Lavi, a new Israeli fighter jet. Other facets of the arrangement may include placing U.S. military equipment in Israel, holding top-level military exchanges, conducting joint exercises and sharing worldwide intelligence data. The U.S. may be even more generous with its financial aid, partly by turning a larger percentage of its huge annual subsidy (an estimated $2.6 billion for fiscal 1984) into outright grants.

In return, Israel will be expected not to surprise the U.S. with unilateral military strikes. It will also be urged to use its influence with the Lebanese factions over which it has sway to persuade them to accept national reconciliation. In addition, the U.S. will want Israel to be more forthcoming on negotiations dealing with the future of the West Bank. Washington will also ask Israel to stop protesting loudly about U.S. attempts to maintain good relations and secure arms deals with moderate Arab states. Says a top U.S. diplomat: "Israel has got to understand that cooperation does not mean exclusivity. We can and must be friends with both." Most of all, U.S. officials hope the newly forged bond with Israel will send a fresh signal to Damascus. "Assad has been smelling weakness, and that's bad," notes an Administration official.

Shortly after the bombing of Marine headquarters in Beirut, TIME has learned, intelligence agencies in the area picked up ominous indications that further terrorist attacks were planned, not only against the U.S. compound but against a much bigger target: the ships of the Sixth Fleet, which have been keeping watch off the Lebanese coast. The telltale signs included Syrian naval activity, notably around the military ports of Tartus and Latakia, as well as the movement of SS-21 and SA-5 surface-to-air missiles within Syria itself. It was unclear exactly what the Syrians were up to. Were they steeling themselves for the anticipated U.S. retaliatory strike, or were they in on the planning of further attacks? According to intelligence officials, the Syrian threats were what prompted the U.S. to dispatch additional aircraft carrier groups to the area and to increase the number of reconnaissance flights. Denying that it was motivated by fears of direct Syrian attacks, the U.S. described the deployment of ships in the eastern Mediterranean as routine.

There were other disquieting signals.

Two weeks ago, Syria raised its number of soldiers in Lebanon from 58,500 to 62,000. Two mechanized divisions were moved to the Syrian front on the Golan Heights, and some 30 commando and paratrooper battalions were transferred from Lebanese soil to Syrian airfields. The Israelis became even more alarmed when they learned that the estimated 500 Soviets stationed at the site of an SA-5 missile battery were heading home. One interpretation holds that the Soviets simply had finished training the Syrians to operate the batteries. The worst-case scenario: the Syrians were preparing to go to war and the Soviets did not want to get caught in the middle. Observed an Israeli intelligence official: "Somehow we were calmer when we knew the Soviets were keeping their fingers on the triggers."

The people of Tripoli did not need to muse about war games last week. The real thing, with its blood and terror, was ripping up yet another patch of Lebanon. As the powers squared off and the battle lines blurred, the entire country sometimes seemed fated to disappear in the flames of Middle East passion. French Author Albert Camus once observed that one is always too generous with the blood of others. Lately, the world has been too generous with the blood of the people in Lebanon. --By James Kelly. Reported by Johanna McGeary/Washington and William Stewart/Tripoli

*Last week the Pentagon announced the final toll of the Beirut bombing: 218 Marines, 18 Navy men and three Army soldiers dead.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary, William Stewart/Tripoli This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.