The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 09, 2000, Page A5, Image 5
___Nation & World_ ._
Barak declares state of emergency
as Lebanese guerillas hit Israel
by Dina Kraft
Associated Press
Kiryat Shemona, Israel — Tens of
thousands of Israelis living near the
Lebanon border huddled in underground
shelters or fled south out of rocket range
Tuesday, fearing reprisals by Lebanese
guerrillas for the heaviest Israeli bom
bardment in eight months.
In its second straight night of attacks,
Israel’s air force struck Hezbollah offices
in the coastal city of Tyre and the guer
rilla stronghold of Iqlim al-Tuffah, 40
miles southeast of Beirut, Lebanese se
curity officials said. At least two people
®vere wounded.
The Israeli army confirmed the at
tack late Tuesday and early Wednesday
on Iqlim al-Tuffah, but identified the oth
er target as a Hezbollah radar station.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak or
dered a military state of emergency along
the northern border, a sign that Israel was
preparing for extended fighting. Hezbol
lah guerrillas on Tuesday killed an Israeli
soldier—the sixth in two weeks — on
ly hours after Israeli airstrikes cut elec
tricity across parts of Lebanon.
“In all that is connected with the pro
tection of our people, our settlements
and our soldiers, we will do everything
required,” Barak told residents of Kiry
at Shmona who had spent the night in
Shelters.
Israeli leaders blamed Syria for the
latest flare-up and said peace talks won’t
r----—-—-—"" .
resume with Damascus until it ends the
wave of Lebanese guerrilla attacks.
Syria is the main power-broker in
Lebanon, and Israel says it encourages
the violence.
In Waslimgton, Lebanon’s ambassador
accused Israel of deliberately targeting
civilians.
“I expressed my government’s
concern—grave concern —- for the Is
raeli attacks on civilian targets and ex
plained that these were deliberate attacks
in contradiction of law and the April 1996
agreement,” Ambassador Farid Abboud
said Tuesday.
He was referring to a U.S.-brokered
understanding that forbids attacks on or
from civilian areas in southern Lebanon.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
said, however, that Israeli airstrikes were
a response to deadly attacks on Israeli
soldiers by Hezbollah from Lebanese vil
lages, in violation of the 19% agreement.
“What the Israelis have done is to
send a very clear signal about the fact
they don’t want this to escalate,” Albright
said.
The airstrikes late Monday and ear
ly Tuesday destroyed three power sta
tions at Jamhour near Beirut, in the north
ern mountains east of the port city of
Tripoli and in the eastern Bekaa Valley
town of Baalbek, a Hezbollah guerrilla
stronghold where a base for the group al
so was targeted. The base remained sealed
and damage couldn’t be assessed.
Fifteen civilians were wounded in
Baalbek and were treated at hospitals for
various injuries from broken glass, debris
and shrapnel. Parts of Lebanon were left
without electricity, and severe rationing
was imposed.
The airstrikes were the harshest since
a similar strafing by the outgoing hard
line government, just before Barak took
office in July.
The escalation in attacks on Israeli
troops staffing a buffer zone in Lebanon’s
south coincided with the collapse in Syr
ian-Israel peace in mid-January.
Syria wants a prior commitment from
Israel that it will withdraw from the dis
puted Golan Heights before talks ensue;
Israel refuses, and says the resumption of
violence is a crude effort to get Israel to
cave in.
Barak was getting closer to playing
his own card against Syria — a unilater
al withdrawal from Lebanon that would
leave Syria without its single most ef
fective method of pressuring Israel and
would raise uncomfortable questions
about the presence of30,000 Syrian troops
in Lebanon.
“If we will not reach an agreement
(with Syria) in the next two months, I
believe — I know — that the Israel gov
ernment will meet and decide if we
will withdraw unilaterally,” Cabinet min
ister Haim Ramon, a Barak confidant,
told The Associated Press.
While such talk could influence a Syr
ia that is eager to end its international iso
lation, it will have little influence on the
Hezbollah, a militant group that
negates the very existence of the Jewish
state. Should a withdrawal occur — with
or without peace talks — Hezbollah,
seeking to expand its political influence,
would claim credit as the force that drove
the occupiers south.
With such win-win prospects, the
guerrillas showed no sign of holding back.
On Tuesday, their rockets hit an Is
raeli military outpost at Dabshe, two miles
north of the Israeli border, killing one
soldier. A pro-Israeli militiaman was lat
er wounded in a separate guerrilla attack
on the outpost of Bir Kallab in south
ern Lebanon. He died later.
The prospect of the rockets reaching^
Israel prompted Barak’s announcement,
through broadcast media, of a 48-hour
state of emergency. Residents who stayed
north were required to spend the night
in shelters.
Many headed south rather than face
another night in the bowels of their apart
ment buildings. Rachel Ben-Sultan, sur
rounded by four bulging suitcases at the
Kiryat Shmona bus station, said she was
fed up with repeated emergencies after
43 years in the city.
“If these attacks go on intensively,
we will leave, we will go to a place that
has peace and quiet,” she said before
boarding a bus to stay with her daughter
in a town several miles southwest. “We
cannot go on like this.”__
Sudanese rebels claim
government bombs school
Associated Press
Nairobi, Kenya—A Sudanese gov
eminent plane bombed a primaiy schoo
in rebel-controlled southern Sudan
killing 13 students, Sudanese rebels sail
Tuesday.
Several teachers and students were
injured when a Russian-made Antonov
bomber dropped six bombs on and
around the school in the town of Kaou
da in the Nuba Mountains, 325 miles
south of Khartoum, said Samson Kwa
je, spokesman for the Sudan People’s
Liberation Army.
'If these attacks go on intensively, we will leave, we
will go to a place that has peace and quiet. We
cannot go on like this.’
Rachel Ben-Sulton
resident
Four escape
hijacked plane
by Caroline Byrne
Associated Press
Stansted, England —Four men •
dropped from the cockpit window of a
hijacked plane and ran to safety Tuesday
night, fleeing the Afghan aircraft that has
been parked for two days while negotia
tors seek the release of more than 150
passengers.
In the darkness shortly before mid
night, the men used a rope help lower
themselves about 20 feet to the tarmac
of Stansted airport. Authorities said the
four appeared to be hostages.
They were being questioned after re
ceiving medical attention, and appeared
to have suffered no serious injuries, said
Joe Edwards, an Essex Police assistant
chief constable,
“The^negotiations with people on
board the plane continue,” said Edwards.
“The mood on board remains calm.”
Earlier, negotiators warned that .the
talks, which gained the release of a ninth
hostage during the day Tuesday, could go
on for days.
“The negotiations are going forward
in a professional way, in a fairly calm
way,” said John Broughton, an Essex Po
lice assistant chief constable. “The prin
cipal concern here is the safety of the
passengers on board that aircraft.”
The aims of the hijackers, believed
to be Afghans, remained unclear. Spec
ulation ranged from an elaborate play for
political asylum to a bid to win the re
lease of Ismail Khan, a former regional
governor in Afghanistan detained since
1997 by the country’s ruling Taliban
movement.
Asked about a potential asylum bid,
Broughton said: “In talking around the
issues, there are a lot of things raised.”
He would not elaborate, saying only that
the hijackers, who controlled the plane
at Stansted Airport 25 miles north of Lon
don, had made no “formal demands.”
Most of the negotiations involved
what Broughton called housekeeping is
sues, such as the delivery of water and
food to the Ariana airlines plane.
“We’ve done everything we can to
keep the conditions on the aircraft hab
itable,” said Edwards. “We’re talking all
the time about what’s the condition of
people and how are the children.”
A London representative of the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees arrived
at Stansted as an observer, police said
Tuesday evening. She would not be a ne
gotiator, but would bring to the crisis the
strength of the U.N.’s expertise on the
situation in Afghanistan, Edwards said.
The Boeing 727 had been headed to
the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e
Sharif from the Afghan capital, Kabul,
when it was seized early Sunday. It
then began a meandering journey
across the former Soviet Union, stopping
in Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and Russia.
According to some of the 22 pas
sengers released before the plane landed
at Stansted early Monday, the hijackers
are eight young men armed with pistols,
grenades and daggers. Edwards said for
mer hostages that authorities have talked
to have said there were between six
and 10 hijackers.
They were believed to still be hold
ing more than 150 hostages, including 21
children. All the passengers were believed
to be Afghans.
Eight passengers were released at
Stansted on Monday, including two in
fants who were treated for dehydration.
The man released earlier Tuesday, an asth
matic, had complained of feeling ill,
Broughton said.
The freed hostages have said they
were treated well, authorities said. One
told reporters the hijacking started some- •
what quietly 20 minutes into the flight,
with the armed men calmly telling pas
sengers to put their hands on their heads.
“The people we are talking to are re
markably calm and that’s really impor
tant,” Edwards said. “The atmosphere is
one of control, people behaving ratio
nally. That’s going to help an awful lot.”
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