The World - News from June 9, 1989

Syrian gunners and their Lebanese Druze allies unleashed a hail of fire on Christian ports and neighborhoods in and around Beirut. Security officials said Syrian troops used rocket launchers and cannon to pound several Christian residential areas and ports north of Beirut. They said Druze gunners in mountains southeast of Beirut also bombarded the harbors. Forces of the Christian army commander, Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, retaliated by shelling Syrian and Lebanese artillery positions between apartment buildings on the seafront in Muslim West Beirut, they said. Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Algeria arrived in Damascus for talks with Syrian leaders on ways to end the fighting.