Israeli Jets Bomb Palestinian Targets in Lebanon

BARJA, Lebanon â€”  Israeli warplanes blasted Palestinian targets south of Beirut on Thursday while a Syrian-backed guerrilla leader was visiting the region. Police said at least one guerrilla was wounded.

The six Israeli fighter-bombers rocketed and destroyed three guerrilla command posts in olive groves near the Kharroub region town of Barja in three bombing runs, police said. Barja is 16 miles south of Beirut.

The raid began at 6:05 p.m. and lasted 10 minutes. The positions were manned by guerrillas of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, police said.

The group’s commander, Ahmed Jibril, was inspecting the Kharroub region at the time of the raid, but several guerrillas said he was not wounded in the attack. Jibril is a former Syrian army captain. His group is based in Damascus and gets financial support from Libya in addition to backing from Syria.

In Israel, the military command said that the warplanes returned safely to their bases. Pilots reported accurate hits on guerrilla targets, the brief Israeli communique said.

The targeted group claimed responsibility for an attack in northern Israel last November by a guerrilla flying a motorized hang glider. The guerrilla killed six Israeli soldiers and wounded eight before he was slain.

Meanwhile, a hard-line Lebanese Christian militia leader escaped an attempt on his life Thursday night when a car bomb exploded near a barracks in a village north of Beirut, security sources said.

They said that Samir Geagea, 38, the leader of the Lebanese Forces militia, was at the barracks in the village of Mastita in Jbeil, 22 miles north of Beirut, when the explosion occurred.

The blast wounded two militiamen, but Geagea was not injured, they said.

It was not immediately clear who placed the car bomb.