From: bh437292@LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Basil Hamdan)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Attack on Israeli patrol in S. Lebanon & Israeli retaliation
Date: 8 Apr 92 16:06:04 GMT
Organization: Colorado State U. Engineering College

Subject: ISRAEL SHELLS SHIITE VILLAGES IN LEBANON IN RETALIATION

SIDON, LEBANON (APRIL 7) UPI - Israeli artillery shelled Shiite villages in
southern Lebanon Tuesday, apparently in retaliation for an overnight attack on
a border zone patrol that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded three others
 security sources said.
   Some 60 shells fired from Israeli positions inside the security zone fell on
the Shiite villages of Loueizeh, Arab Salim, Ain Bouswar and Jbaa, east of the
port city of Sidon, 24 miles south of Beirut, the sources said.
   Hills overlooking the nearby market town of Nabatiyeh also came under heavy
shelling, they said, adding that Israeli helicopters and warplanes flew over
the targeted area. No casualties were reported.
   Lebanese army troops returned the fire and rushed reinforcements to their
positions along the security zone in Nabatiyeh.
   The renewed violence came after an attack by Palestinian guerrillas Monday
against a joint patrol of Israeli troops and the Israeli-backed South Lebanon
Army militia near the border village of Houla.
   According to Israeli accounts, two Israeli soldiers were killed and five
others, including three high-ranking officials, were wounded. Three guerrillas
were killed and two SLA militiamen were injured.
   The Houla attack, the largest against Israeli forces this year, provoked
Israeli officials to vow "harsh retaliation" against the resistance guerrillas.
   The commander of Israel's northern region Gen. Yitzhak Mordakhai warned
during a tour in southern Lebanon Monday that if the pro-Iranian "Hezbollah or
any other group continued such operations, they will force us to retaliate and
they will pay a high price."
   Uri Lubrani, coordinator of Israeli activities in Lebanon, said Lebanese
resistance guerrillas had consolidated their forces in the past few months.
   Lubrani said Hezbollah "is now stronger than it used to be six months ago
because no one can prevent it from gathering its forces along the edges of the
security zone.
  "They take their orders from Iran and execute them in the security zone," he
said.
   Fears of a large Israeli incursion against southern Lebanon increased
following last month's bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, which killed some 28 people.
  The Islamic Jihad, an offshot of Hezbollah, claimed responsibility for the
bombing attack and said it was to avenge the slaying of Hezbollah chief Sheikh
Abbas Musawi, who was killed along his wife and son in an Israeli helicopter
attack against his mortorcade near the southern village of Teffahta Feb. 16.
  A Western diplomat said expected Israeli retaliation for Buenos Aires bombing
"does not necessarily mean that it will occur in Lebanon."
  The diplomat said the Israelis were planning "a revengeful attack of the same
caliber."
  "They usually have five or six well-prepared plans and will pick up the most
convenient at the last moment and only a short time before the zero-hour for
execution."
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast