SYRIAN TROOPS IN TRIPOLI: TAMING LEBANON OR RISKING COSTLY EMBROILMENT?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200065-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2011
• Sequence Number: 65
• Publication Date: October 7, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/31 : CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200065-0
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
7 October 1985
Syrian troops in Tripoli:
~---e
Lebanon or ring costly embroftent?
11 By Jim Muir
Specl to The ChfleUw Science Monitor
Moods, Cypma
The deployment of Syrian tr ps in the
battered north Lebanese port city of Trip-
oli yesterday marks the latest step in Syr-
ia's campaign to bring
its turbulent neighbor
under control.
But observers are di-
vided over whether this
means the Syrians are
finally succeeding in taming Lebanon -
or whether they may be risking another
dangerous and sapping embroilment.
The use of Syrian troops to keep the
peace will be watched closely in Beirut
where clashes have continued despite the
Aug. 22 cesso-fire sponsored by Syria. If
successful, the Tripoli formula could en-
courage the Syrians to step in militarily to
end the anarchy prevailing in Beirut.
Despite the Tripoli accord, there is still
no sign of the three surviving Soviet Em-
bassy personnel abducted last week by
the so-called Islamic
Liberation
Organiza-
tion, which murdered a
fourth Soviet diplomat.
The group was de-
manding that the Sovi-
ets pressure their ally Syria to stop the
Tripoli battles. Over the weekend, the
USSR evacuated 60 Soviet citizens from
Beirut. There was also no sum Sunday of
kidnapped US diplomat William Buckle
Last Thursday his abductors ermined
the had killed him in reprisal for the Is-
ra air strike no Palestine liberation
won headquarters in Zw* last
were pggW that
abductors would Buckley because
of the attack on the PLO. The Islamic
JMW w claimed re oral for
151np='s abduction ia March - 1984, is
fiercely anti- erican. and the PLO :-
currently twins to mesas a political dia-
logue with Washington.
One ez lanation was provided by NBC
News, w quoted intelligence . sources
this weekend as saying they believed
3u under torture two
months ago, and the raid on the P
provided a convenient pretext for R2EBc1nS his death.
[Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Beirut
said Sunday it was investigating reports
that an American who vanished in Leba-
non last month might have been kid-
napped. Reuters reports. Steven James
Donahue disappeared while doing re-
search for a book on narcotics smuggling.)
The Syrian deployment in Tripoli was
part of a cease-fine accord announced late
Thursday night in the Syrian capital of
Damascus. The truce ended nearly three
weeks of increasingly violent battles be-
tween pro- and anti-Syrian militias.
Syria's previous efforts to control
Lebanese cities have not been felicitous.
Syrian troops entered Beirut in 1976 but
found themselves locked in a violent and
inconclusive confrontation with the Chris-
tian eastern half of the city two years
later. In west Beirut, they became the tar-
gets of car-bomb and other attacks, and
were finally squeezed out by the Israeli
siege in August 1982.
In Tripoli, the new phase of Syrian
pacification efforts follows a series of
intra-Lebanese battles that have made it
seem as though only the Syrians are capa-
ble of saving Lebanon. Syria has been
presiding over a series of meetings be-
tween the Christian, Druze, and Shiite
Muslim militias aimed at reaching a com-
mon conception of Lebanon's future.
The Tripoli cease-fire accord had be-
hind it the authority of Syrian President
Hafez Assail who held separate talks
with the warring Tripoli factions - the
fundamentalist Sunni Muslim Tawheed
Islami ("Islamic Unification") movement
and the coalition of Syrian-backed
Lebanese parties which had been trying to
dislodge the Tawheed from the city.
The accord puts Syria in charge of se-
curity in Tripoli, although the Lebanese
Army and police will also play a part in
controlling the city. Under the accord, all
security operations are to be the responsi-
bility of a new security operations office,
headed by the commander of Syrian
forces in north Lebanon. The agreement
calls for all the warring militias to hand in
all their heavy and medium-caliber weap-
onry to the Syrians. Small arms are to be
collected and stored by the militias them-
selves in their own depots, subject to in-
spection by the operations office.
Agreeing to give up their arms and to
yield control of Tripoli represented a ma-
jor climb-down by the Tawheed funda-
mentalists, who had driven out the rival
secular factions two years ago. In negotia-
tions a week after the fighting began Sept.
15, they refused to hand in their weapons.
The Sy the military delegation that was
leading negotiations called off its me-
diation and gave the green light for a four-
pronged assault on the city by allied mili-
tias operating out of Syrian-controlled
territory around Tripoli.
Wth the yrian-backed militias inch-
ing their way forward into the city the
Tawheed fighters faced slow annihilation.
But Iran, which has close relations with
the Tripoli fundamentalists, stepped in to
avert their destruction.
An Iranian delegation escorted the
iThwheed leader, Sheikh Saeed Shaaban,
to Damascus for the talks that produced
the cease-fire accord.
The truce has basically worked so far.
On Saturday, a Red Cross team was able
to get into the city for the first time in a
week and discovered massive destruction
and appalling conditions. Local hospitals
were crammed with casualties, while in
some areas bodies were still strewn amid
the rubble in the streets. As many as 500
people are estimated to have died, with
well over 1,000 wounded. Up to half a mil-
lion of the city's 700,000 inhabitants were
believed to have fled before the worst of
the battles began.
"After a battering like that, it's hardly
surprising that Tripoli would accept peace
at any price," said one observer. But
wait till they've got their breath back."
Approved For Release 2011/08/31 : CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200065-0