Shells Pour In; Lebanese Hunker Down : Arab League Seeks Beirut Truce in Face of Pitiless Artillery Fire

BEIRUT —  Terrified Lebanese residents, crammed 40 to 50 in basements of shell-battered buildings, Tuesday faced the fourth week of a pitiless artillery showdown, pinning their only hopes on an Arab League truce plan.

As shelling resumed with fresh intensity early Tuesday afternoon, political sources said an Arab League committee, trying to arrange a cease-fire, plans to ask Lebanon’s army commander, Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, who heads the country’s Christian-led Cabinet, to end a sea blockade of ports, the act that sparked the violence.

The committee would also ask Syria’s Muslim and leftist allies to lift their siege of the Christian enclave, controlled by Aoun’s men.

The sound of shelling echoed across the capital for the 22nd day of violence, which started after Aoun imposed the blockade. It has now engulfed one-third of Lebanon in the heaviest artillery bombardments in 14 years of civil war, a confrontation that has dwarfed most earlier fighting.

After a savage night in which thousands of shells rained on more than 100 areas in the capital, the mountains and the Syrian-held Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, shelling eased briefly.

A few shells hit Christian areas in Beirut and Druze-held mountains to the southeast, but fighting later intensified with shells hitting Christian coastal areas north of Beirut and others slamming into residential areas in Muslim West Beirut close to the battle-scarred “green line” that divides the capital into Christian and Muslim sectors.

Meanwhile, Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim fighters of the Hezbollah (Party of God) militia joined Syria and its Lebanese allies against the Christians, United Press International reported. The Hezbollah fighters were seen fighting alongside their former rivals of Amal, another Shiite militia, witnesses said.

Since March 14, at least 123 people have been killed and 473 wounded in the fighting pitting Syrian gunners and their local Muslim allies against mainly Christian troops. Most of the casualties have been civilians.

“Just around my house in one small street there were mounds of debris, scores of burned cars and carpets of glass,” said a resident of Christian East Beirut.

“People are living in shelters all day and night long . . . 40 or 50 people together,” another resident said.

Nearly 1,000 residents managed to flee the capital on Monday and Tuesday, taking a ferry to Cyprus from the northern port of Juniyah.

Aoun, in command of an estimated 15,000 troops in Lebanon’s Christian sectors, has vowed to drive Syria’s 32,000 soldiers from Lebanon even if the battle flattens Beirut.

His vow followed a flare-up of fresh violence after he imposed a blockade on illegal ports, even those outside his control in Syrian-dominated areas.

The ports provided the main source of income for several of the country’s sectarian militias and are their source of supplies in times of crisis.

Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, has maintained a strong military presence there since 1976, when a Syrian-dominated Arab League peacekeeping force entered the country to restore order after the outbreak of the civil war. Aoun’s determination to force out the Syrian troops has posed a challenge to Damascus’ role as a major force in the Arab world.

In Damascus, Al Baath, publication of the ruling Baath party, termed Aoun a “crazy general.” Political sources say that Iraq, Syria’s Arab arch-rival, is giving the 54-year-old general full support in what he calls a “liberation war.”

The sources said the Arab League committee plan calls for an immediate cease-fire, an end to the blockade, the reopening of crossing points on Lebanon’s Christian-Muslim divide and a two-month truce.

Committee officials plan to meet with Muslim and leftist militia leaders in Damascus today and Christian leaders later in Amman, Jordan, to discuss the plan.

“The truce would allow the committee to try to find a political solution,” one source said.

The committee was set up earlier this year to tackle a constitutional deadlock that has left Lebanon without a president since September. But it is now more immediately concerned with ending massive bombardments of civilian areas.

Christian political sources said Aoun refuses to end the blockade and insists on the Syrian pullout.

A Muslim political source said that Salim Hoss, acting Muslim premier who heads a Syrian-backed government vying for power with Aoun’s military one, suggested to the Arab League that Aoun “end his blockade without publicizing it, but Aoun has not responded yet.”