Page 6-Wednesday, May 9, 1979-The Michigan Daily
Israeli attacks shake Lebanon for third day
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Israeli
jets attacked targets in southern
Lebanon yesterday and buzzed Beirut
during a speech in which Palestinian
guerrilla leader Yasser Arafat said
America was a "snake's head" that
must be crushed.
Arafat's command said three
civilians were wounded when Israeli
warplanes strafed the coastal highway
between the Zahrani River and Abu al
Aswad, 30 miles north of the Israeli
border.
Arafat said jets also raided the
southern Lebanon town of Bissariyeh,
32 miles from Beirut, and his command
reported later that at least three Israeli
jets bombed and rocketed the villages
of Aishuyeh and Reihan, 10 and 11 miles
north of the frontier with Israel. No
casualty reports were given.
In Tel Aviv, the military command
said its warplanes bombed "terrorist
concentrations" twice yesterday,
striking early near the Zahrani and in
the afternoon near Reihan. It said all
the planes returned safely.
The third straight day of air raids
brought the reported casualty toll of
Palestinians and Lebanese to 66 dead
and 143 wounded in reprisal attacks
Israel has mounted since it signed its
peace treaty with Egypt March 26.
BOTH EGYPT and the United States
attempted to pressure Israel into
halting its attacks, but Prime Minister
Menachem Begin was resolute to con-
tinue them.
Begin offered a peace treaty with
Lebanon on Monday, which was im-
mediately rejected. He threatened at
the same time to continue attacking
Palestinian strongholds.
But while the jets buzzed Beirut,
Arafat, speaking to guerrilla graduates
in a hideaway south of the city, said:
"Terrorist Begin should realize that
he cannot challenge us. No one can
challenge men of sacrifice, men who
consider themselves living martyrs,
men who carry their own coffins as they
fight."
ARAFAT ALSO urged foreign
ministers of Islamic countries meeting
in the Moroccan city of Fez to take
collective sanctions against the United
States.
In Cairo, Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat predicted the Arab boycott of
Egypt over its peace treaty with Israel
"will all be history" by next year.
And in Jerusalem a top-level commit-
tee began preparing Israeli policy for
the opening round of talks with Egypt
and the United States this month on the
shape of Palestinian self-rule in Israeli-
occupied territories.
THE COMMITTEE of 11 Cabinet
ministers was studying a 30-noint
v
proposal by Begin which reportedly
safeguards Israel's right to continue
Jewish settlement in the West Bank of
the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip.
Government sources said Secretary
of State Cyrus Vance was planning trips
to Cairo and Jerusalem later this month
for initial contacts on the. autonomy
plan for the 1.1 million Palestinians in
the West Bank and Gaza.
Formal talks between negotiators of
the three countries are to begin by May
25.
21 Iranians killed
during bloodiest day
since executions began
TEHRAN, Iran (AP)-Tehran's
revolutionary firing squads, in the
bloodiest day since they began
executing their countrymen in
February, killed 21 persons yesterday,
including two of the shah's former
Cabinet ministers and an army
general, Radio Tehran announced.
More trials were reported under way
and the total of known executions is ex-
pected to rise from its current level of
191.
Sobbing relatives gathered at the
Tehran city morgue shortly after dawn
to claim the bodies. Reporters said ony
one body was handed over, it in a rough
wooden coffin. Other families were told
to go home and wait to be contacted
about claiming the corpses.
REVOLUTIONARY guardsmen out-
side the morgue angrily told the vic-
tims' relatives the executed were guilty
of murder and deserved their punish-
ment. The official charges against the
victims included "warring with God
and his emissaries," torture and
killing, corruption and "insulting the
imam."
The charge of "insulting the imam"
was a new one and apparently referred
to revolutionary religious leader
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, known
in Iran as the imam, or supreme leader.
Khomeini was the architect of the
Islamic revolution that toppled Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's monarchy
in February.
THE VICTIMS were executed at 5
a.m. after trials that lasted all day
Monday, ending at midnight, in three
branches of the Tehran Islamic
revolutionary court. The executed in-
cluded 18 army figures and alleged
members of the shah's SAVAK secret
police, most notably Brig. Gen. Ali
Fahti Amin of the former Tehran mar-
tial law administration. He was the 30th
of the shah's generals to be put to death.
Before yesterday, the largest group
of executions in one day was 11 when
senior officials, including former
Foreign Minister Abbas Ali Khalatbari,
were shot to death on April 11. Since
then executions have been
sporadic-none on many days and as
many as four on others, usually taking
the lives of minor officials and
policemen.
Tehran newspapers yesterday prin-
ted front-page portraits of those
executed and photographs of their
trials. As before, the trial location ap-
peared to be Qasr Prison, where some
4,000 prisoners of the revolution are
believed held.
Photographers were barred,
however, from the city morgue,
preventing the gory photographers of
corpses that previously had been
traditional on newspaper front pages
after executions.
FBI investigates attempted
sabotage of nuclear plant
(Continued from Page 3)
Stallings added that in addition to the
FBI, Vepco also notified the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission of the incident.
T he fuel elements - uranium pellets
inside tubes of zirconium - were to
have been used to refuel Surry Unit No.
2, which has been out of operation since
January for replacement of its steam
generators. The pellets would not have
become radioactive until they were in-
serted into the reactor and subjected to
the fission process, he said.
STALLINGS SAID there was no
danger of the uranium pellets being
damaged because zirconium is unaffec-
ted by caustic substances.
Stallings said the fuel shipments were
checked as they continued through
March. On April 18, he noted, two of the
64 fuel units were inspected and they
were found to be sound.
Stallings said a preliminary in-
vestigation indicated that between a
couple of cups to a gallon of the caustic
substance was dumped into each of the
62 fuel units. . , ,
"IT MUST HAVE been done over a
period of time," he said. "He may have
rolled in a wheelbarrow. I just don't
know."
He said he could not understand how
the attempt was carried out in view of
the security at the Surry plant.
"We are told we have the best
security system of any nuclear plant in
the country," he said.
GRADUATE RECORD
NEW YORK (AP)-U.S. chemical-
engineering colleges will award
degrees in June to an all-time record
number of engineers, notes Chemical
Engineering magazine.
Bachelor's degrees in chemical
engineering will be awarded to 5,500
students, eclipsing last year's all-time
high of 4,621.
The publication says demand for
chemical engineers will continue strong
for the next three years. Growth,
however, will not keep pace with the
",nslaught of gaduates."