Ship Flees Christian Lebanese Port Under Syrian Fire; 7 Injured

BEIRUT — Syrian gunners fired more than 100 rockets Friday at the only passenger vessel that serves the Christian enclave north of Beirut, wounding seven people on the pier and forcing the ship to turn back for Cyprus, police said.

The ship left behind nearly 300 people trying to escape the artillery war that has killed more than 750 people and wounded more than 2,100, by police count, in five months.

The sea route to Cyprus is the only link to the outside world for the 1 million Christians of the 310-square-mile enclave, which is blocked on the three other sides by Syrian soldiers, guns and tanks. Syria is backing Muslim militias in their war with Lebanon’s Christians.

Police said the Syrians opened up with truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers soon after midnight as the hydrofoil Santa Maria docked at Juniyah, a Christian port 12 miles north of Beirut.

The 120 arriving passengers had just disembarked when the rocketing started, according to a port spokesman. One rocket hit the pier close to the passengers, wounding seven. The Santa Maria then sped away, leaving all but eight of the 300 departing passengers on the shore.

At the northern end of the Christian enclave Friday, Syrian and Christian soldiers fought a four-hour battle across the Madfoun River bridge that police described as the most serious since the U.N. Security Council passed a cease-fire resolution Tuesday.

Police said the Syrians fired at merchant ships sailing into the Christian port of Amsheet, just south of the river, and that Christian gunners fired on Syrian positions, touching off the exchange.

Christian radio stations said nine Syrian soldiers were killed and 12 were wounded in the clash 28 miles north of Beirut. Christian casualties were listed as four wounded. Police said they could not confirm the report.

Syrian gunners regularly bombard the Christian-held coast north of Beirut to disrupt the flow of arms and other goods to the Christians.

Police said three people were killed and 26 wounded in sporadic artillery exchanges elsewhere.

In Beirut, French envoy Alain Decaux held separate talks with the Maronite Catholic patriarch, Nasrallah Sfeir, and with Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, Christian commander of the Lebanese army, but he would not speak with reporters.

He arrived Thursday and met in West Beirut with acting Prime Minister Salim Hoss, a Sunni Muslim, and Hussein Husseini, the Shiite Muslim Speaker of Parliament. Hoss heads a Muslim Cabinet competing for power with the Christian government led by Aoun.

An aide to Hoss said Decaux will “submit a report of his observations to his superiors, who would work on a plan to stabilize the situation in Lebanon.”

In Baghdad, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, met Friday and agreed to ask the Arab League for an emergency summit on the Lebanese crisis. Iraq, an enemy of Syria, is the Christians’ main arms supplier.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: “We feel there is no justification for continued military action in the face of urgent appeals and we urge all sides to . . . observe a cease-fire on all fronts.”

The latest round of fighting in Beirut began March 8 between the 20,000 soldiers of Aoun’s army and an alliance of 40,000 Syrian soldiers and Muslim militias.