March 28, 1989

Associated Press

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Gen. Michel Aoun's Christian army command said today that its troops repulsed a tank-led attack by Syrian forces and their allies against Christian positions southeast of Beirut, killing 15 Syrian soldiers.

Monday night's abortive attack was the first ground offensive reported in three weeks of fierce clashes between Christians and Moslems in a new round of Lebanon's 14-year-old civil war.

It targeted Christian army units positioned in the strategic hilltop resort of Souk El-Gharb southeast of Beirut, a spokesman for Aoun's command said.

The spokesman, who refused to be named, said the Syrians lost two Soviet-designed T-54 tanks and a battery of multibarreled rocket launchers in the attack.

The Christian Voice of Lebanon radio station said Syrian-backed Palestinian guerrillas of Col. Saeed Mousa's Fatah-Uprising and militiamen of Druse warlord Walid Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party also took part in the attack.

The Syrian army command in Moslem west Beirut withheld comment on the report. A Lebanese police spokesman said the department usually was "not informed on the Syrian army's activities."

But the spokesman, who cannot be named under standing rules, said police stations reported "ferocious shelling of the army's area of operations from Syrian-controlled territory"

He said two people were killed and 12 wounded in overnight artillery clashes between Syrian gunners and Christian army units in and around Beirut.

The latest casualties from the daily shelling duel and the Syrian attack raised to 116 killed and 362 wounded the casualty toll since this round of fighting broke out March 8.

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The so-called "Christian" army of Lebanon is in fact the army controlled by the Maronite Catholic faction of Lebanon. Maronite Catholicism is a sub-cult of Roman Catholicism in full communion with the Roman pontiff.

The mass media doesn't refer to the "Maronite Catholic army" in Lebanon because accurate labeling would reflect unfavorably upon Roman Catholicism.

The mislabeling simultaneously protects the image of Roman Catholicism and confuses people as to the nature of Christians.

The technique of pro-Roman Catholic publications is this:

If the subject matter reflects favorably upon Roman Catholicism,

then explicitly label it as "Catholicism."

If the subject matter reflects unfavorably upon Roman Catholicism,

then label it "Christian."

The willfully ignorant stay blissfully ignorant,and only the truth suffers.

Many examples available.