Frustrated by the ineffectiveness of a siege against the rebel Christian chief, Michel Aoun, the Government of President Elias Hrawi has officially asked for Syrian military intervention to oust the renegade general from sectors he controls in East Beirut.
Politicians and press accounts said the request for military assistance was conveyed on Wednesday to the Syrian Vice President, Abdul Halim Khaddam, and that Mr. Khaddam then summoned the American and French Ambassadors to discuss the matter.
Syria has 40,000 troops in Lebanon, and they control two-thirds of the country. [Thousands of Syrian troops and columns of tanks moved toward the enclave held by General Aoun’s forces, The Associated Press reported from Beirut, quoting the Lebanese police. The Syrian forces took up positions in Beirut and the mountains near the capital, the police said.] But General Aoun said in an interview at his bunker here that he does not expect a Syrian attack.
”Damascus is much too intelligent to respond to an impotent, unpopular Government like Hrawi’s,” said the defiant general.
On Sept. 28, the Syrian-supported Hrawi Government imposed a blockade of areas controlled by General Aoun within the 300-square-mile Christian enclave in central Lebanon.
