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ISRAELI JETS BOMB PALESTINIAN BASES IN LEBANON HILLS

ISRAELI JETS BOMB PALESTINIAN BASES IN LEBANON HILLS
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November 21, 1983, Section A, Page 1Buy Reprints
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Israeli jets bombed pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrilla bases in the mountains east of here today, and one attacking plane was shot down, apparently by a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile.

According to Western and Lebanese military sources, seven planes bombed offices of the Syrian-backed As Saiqa Palestinian guerrilla group and the Syrian Baath Party in Falugha and Sofar. They were also said to have attacked a position of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command in nearby Baal Shemaa.

All of the targets were in predominantly Druse villages in aras under the general control of the Syrian Army and its Palestinian guerrilla allies around Bhamdun, about 15 miles east of Beirut. Third Attack Since Nov. 4

A spokesman at the Israeli military liaison office in Christian East Beirut said the air strikes had come "in response to a long series of attacks and attempted attacks "against Israeli soldiers, including the planting of a roadside charge in Sidon last Thursday that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded six others.

The military sources said the raids today were carried out by two American-manufactured Israeli F-16's and five Israeli-made Kfirs.

It was the third Israeli air strike in Lebanon since a truck-bomb attack Nov. 4 on an Israeli military compound in Tyre. A few hours after the Tyre attack, Israeli planes hit Palestinian guerrilla bases in the same area. On Nov. 16, Israeli planes bombed a training base said to belong to pro-Iranian Moslem Shiite militiamen. The militiamen have been implicated in truck-bomb attacks on United States, French and Israeli forces in Lebanon. Pilot Is Returned to Israel

It was only the third time an Israeli jet has been shot down over Lebanon since before the start of the Israeli invasion on June 6, 1982. The pilot, who was said to have been slightly injured, parachuted to safety and was picked up by a Lebanese Army patrol. Hours later he was returned to Israel, an Israeli spokesman said.

It was not immediately clear how much damage the Israeli pilots had inflicted on their targets. Western military officials who said they witnessed part of the attack said the Israelis appeared to have had a great deal of trouble circumventing a curtain of antiaircraft fire thrown up by the Syrians and Palestinians.

In Damascus, a Syrian military spokesman said the Israeli jets had bombed Druse positions in Syrian-controlled areas of Lebanon and that Syrian antiaircraft fire downed two Israeli jets. There was, however, no independent evidence that a second Israeli jet had been shot down.

The Christian Phalangist radio said 18 people were killed in today's air raids, while the Druse Progressive Socialist Party said two civilians were killed and eight others wounded in Sofar. Neither report could be confirmed.

Judging from the Israeli announcement on the reason for today's attack, Israel is returning to its former policy of retaliating against Palestinian guerrilla groups in Lebanon for every attack on Israeli ground troops.

Western military officials here said they believed that the Israelis were signaling the Syrians that they should not misread the mood of Israeli policymakers, who seem increasingly intent on checking the recent expansion of Syrian influence over Lebanon and the buildup of its military forces in general. Emphasis on Antiaircraft Fire

In the past the Israelis have had little difficulty evading Syrian and Palestinian surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft fire, and some military officials here said today's downing may be an indication that the Syrians and their guerrilla allies in Lebanon have improved their techniques or obtained upgraded equipment.

Soviet advisers stationed with Syrian forces in Lebanon have been concentrating for the last year on improving antiaircraft fire, according to Western military sources.

The Israeli planes, the military officials said, managed to make only two or three bombing runs during the 45 minutes they circled their targets. The Israeli jets also consumed a great deal of time flying over Beirut, apparently looking for the downed plane's pilot.

The pattern of today's air raid involved two Israeli jets circling over Beirut then diving toward their targets just over the mountain ridge to the east, spewing thermal balloons all the time to confuse heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles. As usual, after dropping their bombs, the Israelis flew into the mid-afternoon sun, making it difficult for antiaircraft gunners to follow them. Residents Watch Plane Crash

However, according to British officers who watched the attack from their outpost overlooking Beirut, one Delta-winged Israeli Kfir, painted in yellow and green camouflage, was hit by a SAM-7 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile just as it passed over a Syrian position near Arbanniye, seven miles east of Beirut.

The plane was just starting to head west into the sun when its engine stalled as it was over Beirut. Beirut residents watched the plane jerk back and forth for a moment before it began to spiral down in a wide arc.

The pilot appeared to be trying to bring the plane out of its spin or at least steer it into an open space to crash. He ejected from his aircraft when it was only 1,500 feet from the ground, according to British officers, and his aircraft came to the ground relatively gently in an empty field near the southern suburb of Burj al Brajneh.

The field in which the plane landed happened to be a no man's land between territory controlled by the Lebanese Army and that controlled by the Shiite Moslem Amal militia, which controls most of the southern suburbs. Isolated Sniper Fire

The pilot parachuted to the ground amid isolated sniper fire from Shiite militiamen. He landed near the burning fuselage of his aircraft and was rescued by a Lebanese Army patrol, which took him to a hospital for treatment of light wounds, according to the state-run Beirut radio.

The Israeli spokesman in East Beirut said the pilot - who was identified by the Phalangist radio as "Lieutenant Colonel Levie" - was taken by the Lebanese Army from the hospital to the Israeli liaison office in East Beirut. From there, he was picked up by the Israeli Army and taken back to Israel - less than seven hours after his plane had gone down, the Israeli spokesman said.

Large segments of the downed Israeli jet were in reasonably good shape, and it was not clear tonight who was going to get control of the wreckage and whatever electronic gear might be salvageable in it.

American F-14 Tomcats were in the air on a routine reconnaissance mission when the Israeli air raid began, as were Syrian fighter planes over the Bekaa area, according to Western military officials. The sources said both the Syrians and the Americans kept their distance an h military officers, the Israeli pilots appeared to have been taken by surprise by the extent of antiaircraft fire being thrown up at them. They aborted several attempts to dive at their targets. The ground fire, according to the officers, included ZSU-23-4 Soviet-made antiaircraft guns and the Soviet-made SAM-7's.

The Israeli air strike, their second against targets in the same area since the Israeli military headquarters in Tyre was blown up by a truck-bomber on Nov. 4, came only 24 hours after Syria's Defense Minister said his country had surface-to-surface missiles that could hit Israel's nuclear reactor in the Negev in Dimona.

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Hojatolislam Hashemi Rafsanjani, announced today in Teheran that "only 14 Iranian Revolutionary Guards were killed in the Israeli and French air raids last Wednesday and Thursday against pro-Iranian militiamen based around the central Lebanese town of Baalbek. The Iranian official said about 30 Lebanese, most of them apparently Shiites, were killed in the two raids. He said the bodies of the Iranian soldiers, part of a contingent of some 300 Iranian Revolutionary Guards dispatched to Lebanon during the Israeli invasion, were being brought back to Teheran, via Damascus, for burial.

Shortly after today's air raid, Lebanon's President, Amin Gemayel, returned to Beirut after a two-day meeting in Saudi Arabia with King Fahd. Israeli Premier Defends Attacks

TEL AVIV, Nov. 20 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said today that attacks by Israeli planes on guerrilla bases "will continue in Lebanon and elsewhere as long as they continue to attack us."

"Our policy has been and will continue to be to seek the terrorists out, hitting them as before and using new tactics to get at them wherever they are," he told the Israeli radio.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: ISRAELI JETS BOMB PALESTINIAN BASES IN LEBANON HILLS. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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