Israel to Reinforce Allies in S. Lebanon, Rabin Says

JERUSALEM —  Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Sunday that Israel will back up its Lebanese militia allies with Israeli-manned helicopter gunships and tanks to halt a surge of guerrilla attacks in south Lebanon.

He also suggested that Israel may increase the estimated 1,000 troops it keeps in south Lebanon, but he declined to elaborate.

“We are using attack helicopters. . . . We are using our airplanes to cope with terror in Lebanon as we are using artillery and tanks. . . . We feel free to use them whenever it is needed to cope with terror,” Rabin said.

Rabin told reporters that the Israeli assistance is meant “to absolutely break these attacks by inflicting large casualties” on Shia Muslim guerrillas.

A senior military officer, demanding anonymity, said Israel will deploy troops to reinforce the South Lebanon Army militia on a case-by-case basis but that it does not intend to send in a big force.

The latest rocket attack Saturday wounded three Israeli troops, the Israeli military command said. The attack occurred in the Israeli-occupied buffer zone of south Lebanon, which stretches six to 10 miles deep along the border and is meant to prevent guerrillas from attacking Israel itself.

It came one day after five French soldiers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon were wounded by a rocket fired at their barracks in south Lebanon.

Rabin briefed the Cabinet on the stepped-up assaults against Israeli troops, their Lebanese allies and U.N. forces in south Lebanon.

Rabin blamed Iranian-backed Hezbollah (Party of God) extremists and the Shia Amal militia for attacks that have killed four French peacekeepers and at least 12 militiamen of the Israeli-financed South Lebanon Army in the last six weeks.

He rejected as a “false and twisted report” a statement Friday by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar that Israel is responsible for the south Lebanon attacks because it refuses to withdraw its troops from the area.

Rabin said the attacks on the nine-nation, 5,800-member U.N. force were the result of a power struggle between the more moderate Amal militia and Hezbollah for control of the mainly Shia Muslim population in south Lebanon.

Perez de Cuellar softened his accusations in an interview broadcast on Israel radio Sunday. He said: “I am not blaming Israel for what is happening now. It is very, very far from my mind. . . . I want to make it clear--it is the work of really senseless terrorists and extremists.”