Oil slicks spread into the Sea of Galilee last night as a result of an Arab terrorist destruction of a segment of the 1,000-mile Arabian-American (Aramco) pipeline in the Golan Heights area of Israeli-occupied Syria. A splinter group of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed it blew up the section of American-owned pipeline Friday night along the Baniyas River in order that the oil would pollute the river which supplies water for Israeli settlements and fisheries in the Huleh Valley.
(Officials of Tapline, the trans-Arabian Pipeline outfit, announced in Beirut that it closed down the pipeline, which runs from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon, as soon as pressure dropped at the Sidon outlet in Lebanon.)
Israeli firefighters succeeded at noon today in extinguishing flames that raged through the damaged pipeline following the explosion. The fire burned 14 hours before Israelis, working with eight trucks in tremendous heat, managed to quell it. Bulldozers were utilized to direct the flow of oil away from the headwaters of the Jordan River. An Israeli spokesman, inspecting the water sources that form the basis of Israel’s supply, said that “there was no cause for alarm.” Israeli officials said off flowed from the damaged pipeline for two hours before the supply was cut off. Some oil was carried down the Banias River into the Jordan River, but officials said there was no danger of contamination.
An Israeli spokesman said an Israeli army patrol engaged the guerrillas just before they crossed back into Lebanon. A military spokesman said blood stains and an abandoned submachine gun found by the patrol suggested that at least one of the guerrillas was injured. The 30-inch pipeline, completed in 1950, runs from Saudi Arabia through Jordan and Syria to Lebanon. It carries some 30,000,000 tons of crude oil annually. Taxes on it in Lebanon earn that country $4,000,000 annually. This is the first time the oil flow has been interrupted since the Six-Day War two years ago.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
