Six Arab Terrorists Killed in Clash with Israeli Patrol; Dissension in El Fatah Ranks

Six Arab terrorists were killed last night in a clash with an Israeli patrol near Kuneitra in the Golan Heights, less than a mile inside Israeli-held territory. The band was intercepted by the Israeli unit when it tried to cross the demarcation line. There were no Israeli casualties. Police reported last night that 45 members of El Fatah were arrested recently with large quantities of arms, ammunition and sabotage devices. According to police, the gang was responsible for 19 terrorist incidents in the Jerusalem and Hebron areas during the past 18 months. One incident involved the rocket shelling of a Jerusalem residential quarter. Arab quarters report serious dissension in the ranks of El Fatah, the largest of the Palestinian guerrilla groups. The Lebanese newspaper. Al Haivat reported on a meeting of El Fatah’s "Revolutionary Council" at which the guerrilla chief, Yassir Arafat, showed up 24 hours late and barely managed to reverse an earlier vote of no confidence in himself and the El Fatah leadership.

The paper said the "Palestinian National Council" will probably meet in Cairo at the end of this month. It will be the first meeting since the Jordanian civil war last September in which the Palestinian guerrillas took a severe drubbing from King Hussein’s forces. El Fatah’s current difficulties stem from that event. The Lebanese newspaper Al Kafah reported a serious split between the El Fatah rank-and-file in the field and its high command and between the Palestinian liberation movement and the Arab states. According to Al Kafah, the dissenters threaten to expose the El Fatah leadership unless it starts a purge of alleged "traitors." The report was confirmed by the Iraqi News Agency.