Page 4-Wednsdoy, Juce9i 19?- Thfichgoa4 pA Syrian troops open fire on Israeli forces FroimtheAssociatedPress Syrian troops opened fire yesterday near the Beirut-Damascus highway on an Israeli armored force airlifted deep into the central Lebanese mountains, reports from Beirut said. Syrian rein- forcements were reported streaming into Lebanon. The reported clash east of Beirut marked an ominous escalation of the Middle East's latest war, launched by Israel last weekend for the stated pur- pose of driving Palestinian guerrillas from southern Lebanon. EARLIER IN the day, the Israelis reported their warplanes shot down six Syrian MiGs in three air battles over Lebanon and Israel - the most intense air warfare between Syria and Israel in three years. The Israeli invasion force pressed its campaign against the Palestinians. On the embattled coastal road to Beirut, the Israelis pounded guerrilla defen- ders with furious air and sea bombar- dments. Palestinian strongpoints as close as 10 miles to the Lebanese capital were reported under fire, besieged or overrun. The large port of Sidon, 25 miles south of the capital, was reported ablaze. THE SUDDEN airlifting of Israeli forces to the mountains east of Beirut helped further close a noose around guerrillas to the south. Other Israeli forces were already in the far south and southeast, and had a stranglehold on the coastal highway in the west, cutting the southern guerrillas' supply lines from Beirut. But the Israelis' lightning drive, pun- ching more than 40 miles north in three days, also brought them ever closer to an all-out confrontation with the estimated 30,000 Syrian troops who are stationed in Lebanon to police the Arab League truce that ended the 1975-76 Lebanese civil war. "We don't want war with Syria," Prime Minister Menachem Begin declared before the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem. "I appeal to President Hafez Assad to instruct his soldiers not to strike at Israeli soldiers." When they launched the invasion last weekend, the Israelis said its goal was to drive Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas 25 miles back from the Israeli border in order to protect northern Israeli towns from Palestinian shelling. The first report of the Israeli lunge toward the Beirut-Damascus road came from Associated Presss correspondent Edmond Shedid, who reported seeing Israeli helicopters ferry about 100 tanks and other ar- mored vehicles to the hilltops above the town of Deir el-Qamar, 12 miles southeast of Beirut. THE ISRAELIS pushed north largely unchallenged until they reached the town of Ain Dara, little more than a mile south of the highway linking the Lebanese and Syrian capitals, the Beirut reports said. The Syrian command issued a com- munique saying Syrian artillery and helicopter gunships opened fire on the fast-charging Israeli column at Ain Dara. In Brief Compiled from Associated Press and United Press international reports Jet crash in Brazil kills 137 FORTALEZA, Brazil- A Brazilian jetliner slammed into a mountain peak in heavy rain and fog near this northeast coastal city yesterday, killing all 137 people aboard, an air force rescue spokesman said. VASP Airlines Director Jose Rodrigues da Silva said it was not im- mediately known why the Boeing 727 crashed but the weather may have been partly to blame. He said the plane carried 128 passengers and nine crew members. Maj. Luis Gonzaga Lopes, coordinator of the rescue operation, said "the helicopters have located the wreckage of the plane and have informed me that, unfortunately, there are no survivors." The VASP office here did not immediately confirm the number of casualties. The accident occurred at 2:55 a.m. local time (1:55 a.m. EDT) on a domestic run to Fortalez from Sao Paulo, 1,000 miles to the south, with a stopover in Rio de Janeiro, the VASP office in Rio de Janeiro said. Argentina readies for pope BUENOS AIRES, Argentina- Argentina, getting ready to welcome Pope John Paul II on Friday, apparently intends to avoid using the two-day visit as a focus for political harangues against Britain. The pontiff arranged the tour to "balance" his ecumenical trip last week to Britain-Argentina's foe in the undeclared war for the Falkland Islands. He will spend 30 hours on Argentine soil, meeting with President Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri. To celebrate John Paul's visit, meanwhile, the government freed 128 prisoners, Interior Minister Gen. Alfredo Saint Jean announced. Kirkpatrick says she won't resign UNITED NATIONS- U.S. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, at the center of a series of political and diplomatic storms, said yesterday she had no in- tention of resigning "in anything like the foreseeable future. "I have no intention of quitting this job," she said in commenting on rumors that she was getting ready to step down because of policy disagreements with Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Late last month, Kirkpatrick, a former professor of government at Georgetown University, reportedly had an angry 45-minute telephone exh- change with Haig during which she accused him of tilting U.S. policy too much toward Britain in the Falklands conflict. On Friday, Kirkpatrick joined Britain in vetoing a Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire in the FalklandIslands-only to receive belated instructions from Haig that she shouldhave abstained. Reagan policy to allow nations more control over plutonium WASHINGTON- President Reagan has approved a major policy change that would give other nations more control over the reprocessing of plutonium from nuclear fuel supplied by the United States, sources said yesterday. The presidential sanction, given last Friday while Reagan was in France preparing for the economic summit meeting, caps a review begun last year of the anti-proliferation policies of former President Carter. Reagan's new policy was immediately attacked by some critics as a step toward the proliferation of nuclear weapons, of which plutonium can be a key element. Under the new policy, nations receiving atomic fuel from the United States would be given blanket approval to reprocess the spent fuel rods removed from a nuclear power plant, thus removing the plutonium from the rods, said administration sources who declined to be identified. The change replaces Carter's policy of permitting reprocessing only on a case-by-case basis, which involved a review by the United States of each request by a foreign country. Justice Department considers repeal of income disclosure act WASHINGTON - Reagan administration officials said yesterday they have been studying proposals to seek repeal of the requirement that top federal officials make public their financial holdings. They suggested the Watergate-inspired Ethics in Government Act of 1978 has harmed the recruitment of exectuives for the government without im- proving ethics, but acknowledged they could offer no hard data to support that contention. Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Rose, whose Office of Legal Policy in the Justice Department has been making the study, said there was no timetable for offering amendments to the act. "Realistically, prospects in the near term for any change in the statute are very poor," Rose said. He added that the most politically opportune time for such proposals would be in the first year of a president's second term. Top Reagan administration officials have been embroiled in controversy over their financial arrangements in recent weeks after their holdings were disclosed on annual financial statements required by the act. Critical comments were directed at President Reagan after he disclosed that he and his wife accepted more than $31,000 in gifts last year. Beirut grows fearful as Israelis, approach BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Refugees open air. Some refugees accompanied are flooding into Beirut from southern by gunmen are trying to occupy un- Lebanon and the most urgent question finished buildings. on everyone's lips is where will the The coastal town of Jiye has been Israelis stop. overrun by the Israelis. The power plan With the sounds of combat all around there, which supplied about half of them, and Israeli jets flying Beirut's needs, was knocked out of reconaissance missions or howling low commission, prompting prolonged to bomb, war-hardened Lebanese say power cuts. the invasion is fraying their nerves There also has been a run on gasoline almost as much as the 1975-76 civil war. following word that Israeli shells set PEOPLE IN the shops and grocery afire storage tanks at the mouth of the stores of Moslem-controlled West Zahrani River, site of one of Lebanon's Beirut keep their radios tuned to two small oil refineries. newscasts for the often conflicting MOST WEST Beirut shops are open, reports on Israel's advance. but the streets empty when the Israelis Merchants and customers stop in fly over. Anti-aircraft cannons, many mid-sentence to catch the latest of them mounted on pickup trucks that bulletins. are parked around the city, send up Israeli warships south of Beirut are shell fire. shelling shore positions suspected of Lebanese also are anxious about being camps and ammunition dumps staying in touch with loved ones who for Yasser Arafat's Palestine might be trapped in southern regions Liberation Organization. occupied or besieged by the Israelis. Ahead of the Israelis come the There is one elderly woman whose frightened refugees, crowded into son left Beirut early Sunday to drive taxicabs or riding with their south of the PLO-controlled town of belongings in the backs of trucks. Some Nabatiyeh, one of the Israelis' prime must walk. targets. THE PUBLIC garden in West Beirut The woman's son was due back in is crowded with homeless who are Beirut that afternoon but has yet to sleeping in makeshift tents or in the return.