30 Killed, 100 Hurt as Beirut Fighting Escalates

NICOSIA, Cyprus —  At least 30 people were killed and about 100 wounded in Beirut on Tuesday, the worst day for civilian casualties in several years in Lebanon’s civil war.

Artillery shells exploded in the streets, maiming children on the way to school.

Airplanes flew to Cyprus to avoid shelling at the Beirut airport, which was then closed. Ships put to sea in an effort to escape the artillery pounding.

Gen. Michel Aoun, premier and commander of the Christian army, accused Syrian army forces of initiating the fighting, the culmination of a week of escalating clashes.

Aoun said the Syrians fired into both Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut, triggering a daylong exchange of artillery between Christian and Druze militias in the hills southwest of the city.

Aoun said his army will try to force the Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon.

“Lebanon cannot possibly stay under the mercy of the Syrian cannon,” he told reporters at the presidential palace in suburban Baabda, in Christian territory five miles northeast of Beirut.

Aoun called on the Muslims of West Beirut to rise up against the Syrians as Palestinians have risen up against Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He said he also asked the Arab League, which has been trying to mediate the crisis, to “intervene at once to ensure the withdrawal of the Syrian occupation army.” The Syrians, brought in to put an end to the civil war, have been in Lebanon since 1976.

Aoun’s accusations were dismissed in Damascus as false. The official daily newspaper Al Baath said the charges were aimed at “devastating Syria’s constructive role in Lebanon.”

The shelling Tuesday morning caught Beirut civilians out in the streets at the height of the rush hour. Screaming mothers ran through streets to rescue children from schools in areas hit by shelling or from buses stranded in the open. Shopkeepers banged down their shutters as radio stations urged people to stay indoors and seek cover from the shelling. Banks also closed their doors.

The shelling on both sides of the line seemed to be indiscriminate, according to reports reaching here, hitting near restaurants, bakeries, hospitals and U.N. buildings.

Lebanon’s latest crisis began last September when the Lebanese Parliament failed to elect a successor to President Amin Gemayel. Gemayel then appointed Aoun as premier. The incumbent premier, Salim Hoss, a Muslim backed by Syria, refused to step aside, leaving the country with two competing governments and no president.

The latest round of fighting began about a week ago when Aoun decided to close down small ports that have been used by Christian and Muslim forces to bring in arms and duty-free goods.