Unifil Certain Terrorist Acts Against Its Troops Are the Work of the PLO

Officers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are now certain that the terrorist attacks on UN troops during the past two days were carried out by El Fatah, the military arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization and not, as originally reported, by a hitherto unknown extremist terror group backed by Iraq.

Israeli circles had been skeptical all along of the reported promise by PLO chief Yasir Arafat to UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim that his people would cooperate with UNIFIL. The view here is that either the UN has been the victim of PLO duplicity or Arafat is unable to control the El Fatah terrorists.

(In Washington yesterday, State Department spokesman Hodding Carter condemned the attacks on UNIFIL troops. He said they seemed to have been launched by Lebanese leftists and various groups of Palestinian extremists, some or possibly all connected in one way or another with the PLO.)

Nine UNIFIL soldiers were killed in clashes with terrorists in south Lebanon since the UN peacekeeping force entered the area last month to take over from Israeli forces. They include four French soldiers, three Senegalese, one Swedish and one Norwegian soldier.

(In Paris yesterday, French Foreign Minister Louis de Guiringaud “deplored” the attacks on French troops. Official sources and the media have expressed shock and amazement. Some leading newspapers have questioned the wisdom of dispatching French troops to Lebanon to participate in a UN force that is apparently insufficiently equipped with manpower and arms to accomplish its mission.)

(The UN Security Council voted 12-0 yesterday to reinforce UNIFIL by the dispatch of an additional 2000 troops above its originally mandated strength of 4000. The reinforcements will include an additional contingent from Iran and one contingent each from Ireland and Fiji. There was no indication when they would reach Lebanon. UNIFIL is still about 1000 men short of its original 4000-man quota.)