Impromptu Arab Summit Meeting Deals with Palestinian Guerrillas, Suez Canal Combat

The evacuation of the last American forces from the huge Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya provided the occasion for an impromptu Arab summit meeting in Tripoli yesterday. Ostensibly to celebrate what one Libyan official called the removal of a “poisoned dagger” from the Arabs’ back, seven Arab heads of state and a number of lesser leaders gathered in Tripoli to try to coordinate war activities against Israel and to establish peace in their own camp. Present in the Libyan capital were President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan, President Charles Helou of Lebanon, President Noureddin Atassi of Syria, President Hassan El Bakr of Iraq and President Abdel Rahman Iryani of Yemen. Their host was Gen. Muammer Qadhaffi, chief of Libya’s ruling military junta. President Nasser is reported to have urged his fellow-Arabs to shoulder more of the burdens of war against Israel to relieve Egyptian forces on the Suez Canal front. But according to reliable sources, the Arab leaders gave most of their attention to ending the feud between King Hussein’s regime and the Palestinian guerrillas which erupted in five days of bloody fighting in Jordan two weeks ago. The Tripoli gathering was the biggest in the Arab world since the abortive summit meeting held at Rabat, Morocco last December which produced no results. Among the other subjects believed to have been discussed was the question of American supplies of war planes to Israel. The commander of Libya’s Air Force, Lt. Col. Saleh Al-Farjani, alleged that the Wheelus Base had been used to train “Zionists” on Arab soil and that it had played a role in the June, 1967 Arab-Israel war.