Fighting Erupts in Hills After Beirut Airport Is Closed

NICOSIA, Cyprus â€”  Heavy fighting between Christian army troops and Druze militiamen erupted in the hills above Beirut on Sunday after fighting a day earlier closed Lebanon’s only international airport.

The new fighting shattered a cease-fire that had taken effect at midnight Saturday after three days of the worst clashes around the Lebanese capital in 24 months. Since Wednesday, at least six people have been reported killed and more than 30 wounded.

The new outbreak underscored yet another crisis in the 14-year-old civil war that has ravaged that once-prosperous country.

The current trouble began when Christian army chief Gen. Michel Aoun, who is also premier in one of the two competing cabinets, ordered a blockade of Muslim-controlled ports in southern Lebanon.

Contested by Warlord

This action, which would funnel all supplies and custom revenues through Christian-held ports, was heatedly contested by warlord Walid Jumblatt, chief of Lebanon’s Druze, an offshoot sect of Islam.

Jumblatt, who is a minister in the rival Muslim Cabinet, ordered into action his militiamen entrenched in the hills overlooking Beirut. Druze artillery shelled Beirut’s port and Gen. Aoun’s defense headquarters in suburban Yardz and also hit Christian residential areas in the Lebanese capital, sending thousands into shelters.

By nightfall Sunday, the main exchanges of gunfire were occurring around Souq el Gharb, the Christian mountain stronghold near the Druze positions in the Shouf Mountains.

Political Crisis

The new fighting is part of a Lebanese political crisis that began in September when Parliament failed to select a successor to President Amin Gemayel.

Before stepping down, Gemayel named Aoun, a Maronite Catholic, as premier to head a military Cabinet.

But the regular previous Cabinet under Sunni Muslim Premier Salim Hoss refused to step down--leading to rival governments in East and West Beirut, with respective control over the Christian and Muslim areas of Lebanon.

Until the current outbreak, most of the past year’s fighting in Lebanon had been confined to factional struggles within the Christian and Muslim sects for supremacy.

A Matter of Money

Gen. Aoun insisted that incoming commerce move through customs at official ports, while Islamic militias had access to the sea via impromptu facilities in southern Lebanon--their main source of income.

Middle East analysts say that Aoun, having subdued the dissident Christian militias, is now trying to bring Muslim military factions under his government’s control.

Aoun would then try to deal with the Syrians, whose troops occupy much of Lebanon.

But Islamic leaders warned Sunday night that they will reopen Beirut International Airport and, more importantly, maintain their own outlets to the sea.