135 Soviets Evacuate Beirut after embassy Bomb Threat : Head for Damascus in Fast Exit

BEIRUT —  The Soviet Union evacuated most of its embassy staff and their dependents today after an anonymous caller threatened to blow up the mission. The suicide bomb threat followed the abduction of four Soviet officials and the murder of one.

The state-owned radio said 135 people, most of them women, departed in a convoy of four buses and four small cars, along with three trucks of luggage. They were escorted by armed Druze Muslim militiamen.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” said an American television reporter who covered earlier crises when U.S., British, French and other foreign nationals were whisked away from the Lebanese capital in helicopters, ships or buses.

Yuri Souslikov, the embassy charge d’affaires and the senior Soviet diplomat in Lebanon, remained behind with about 30 other diplomats.

The Soviets’ departure came less than seven hours before an evacuation deadline set by the previously unknown Islamic Liberation Organization, which had said suicide bombers would demolish the embassy if all Soviet personnel had not left by 4 p.m. local time today. The deadline passed without incident.

Body of Hostage Found

The group kidnaped the four Soviets on Monday and executed counselor Arkady Katkov, dumping his bullet-riddled body in a West Beirut parking lot on Wednesday.

The organization said it wanted Moscow to persuade Syria to stop leftist Muslim militias from continuing an assault on the northern port of Tripoli. A cease-fire today silenced the gunfire after 20 days of fighting killed 400 people.

“About 135 members of the Soviet Embassy, mainly women and children but also including many staff members, were evacuated by road to Damascus from where they will fly home to Moscow,” Beirut radio said.

“The evacuation of most of the Soviet Embassy is seen as a direct result of the execution of one of three kidnaped Soviet officials this week and threats by the Islamic Liberation Organization to flatten the embassy compound if not emptied by 4 p.m. today,” the broadcast said.

Fate of Others Unknown

Unknown was the fate of the three remaining Soviet hostages: commercial attache Valery Mirikov, attache Oleg Spirin and embassy physician Dr. Nikolai Svirski.

As the convoy--bound for Damascus, Syria, where an Aeroflot jet was to take the Soviets home--rolled out under militia escort, dozens of heavily armed men from the pro-Soviet Druze Progressive Party, backed by at least two Soviet-made T-54 tanks, deployed around the compound to protect the remaining embassy staff.

Witnesses said the tanks blocked the main entrance and another road leading to the embassy compound in the Corniche Mazraa neighborhood of Muslim West Beirut.

Questioned by bystanders regarding their destination, one of the Soviet women in the lead bus said, “Home.” She had no further comment.

The evacuation coincided with a report in Beirut that police had arrested three people in connection with the kidnaping of the Soviets.

The pro-Syrian newspaper Al Sharq said the three suspects were arrested in the Tarik Jedida neighborhood of West Beirut--near the area where the body of the executed Soviet official was found Wednesday.

The newspaper did not identify the suspects but said the police agency had “put its hands on some valuable information which will lead to uncovering the details of the crime.”

It said efforts continued to secure the release of the three missing Soviet officials and that officials were confident the men “would be freed soon.”