UDK World News
By United Press International
Israel, Egypt clash again
MIDEAST — Israeli and Egyptian big guns battled for hours yesterday in fighting that extended the Suez Canal battlefront to its widest are since 1967. Shells burst only 15 miles from Port Said or the Mediterranean and the Israelis claimed they blew up four more Egyptian oil tanks.
Both sides accused the other of starting the fourth cross-canal battle in six days. Various battlefront reports said fighting began late in the morning with small arms fire and mushroomed at dusk into fullscale artillery, rocket and mortar fire that subsided after about nine hours.
In Cairo, the semiofficial newspaper Al Ahram said the canal situation was plummeting toward a fourth Arab-Israeli war and Cairo radio announced Egypt had appointed Maj. Gen. Ahmed Ismail Ali chief of staff to succeed Gen. Abdel Moneim Riad, killed at the canal Sunday.
In Jerusalem, Israeli communiques said no Israeli soldiers were wounded in yesterday's fighting. They said Israeli shells set fire to four more oil tanks at Suez City in the south. This would raise the number hit since Saturday to 17, but the Egyptians did not confirm it.
An Egyptian military spokesman in Cairo said Arab gunners shot down two Israeli helicopters yesterday east of Elshat, near Suez City. He said six Egyptian soldiers had been wounded in vestedav's fighting.
Al Fatah, the Palestinian guerrilla organization, said its gunners shot down an Israeli Mirage jet fighter yesterday south of the Dead Sea near the Jordanian truce front.
By accounts of both sides, United Nations observers arranged a ceasefire effective at 7:15 p.m.
At the U.N. headquarters in New York, however, Israeli
Ambassador Josef Tekoah said in a letter to the Security Council "the Egyptian attack continued and Israeli forces were compelled to resume fire" until about 8:45 p.m.
The Israeli communiques from Jerusalem said the Egyptians started the firing with sniper fire at Israelis conducting "routine" activities along the east bank.
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China accuses Soviets
TOKYO — Communist China today accused the Soviets of sending armored cars bristling with troops and combat
N. Korean firing at truce front, U.S. reports
SEOUL - North Korean border guards fired on a U.S. Army outpost along the truce front yesterday for the second time since preparations for U.S.-South Korean war games began here this week, U.S. military officials said today.
Last Tuesday, U.S. and North Korean border troops exchanged several hundred rounds of machinegun and rifle fire in the same sector, while the 285th meeting of the Korean Military Armistice Commission was being held nearby. No casualties were reported on either side.
They said the North Koreans fired about 40 rounds of automatic weapons fire at a United Nations Command (UNC) guardpost in the western sector of the front. U.S. 2nd Infantry Division troops returned the fire and received no casualties.
The military exercise, dubbed "Focus Retina," opens Sunday and involves some 7,000 U.S. and South Korean troops.
Summit to open
BELGRADE — The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said yesterday that the long-awaited summit of Warsaw Pact nations will open Monday in Budapest.
Quoting unofficial sources, Tanugj said the session would be attended by Communist party first secretaries, premiers, foreign and defense ministers of the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia.
In a Budapest-datelined dispatch, Tanjug said the meeting of the political-consultative committee of the seven Warsaw Pact nations will last three days.
helicopters into its territory near the scene of their Ussuri River border clash at least eight times since the date of that battle.
Tanjug said it was believed the meeting would deal primarily with "the question of China," following the recent Sino-Soviet border clash.
Peking's New China News Agency said Red China sent notes to the Soviet embassy "strongly protesting these provocations" and also protesting the alleged beating of a Chinese embassy staff member by Kremlin-controlled "ruffians" in Moscow.
The NCNA said in two broadcasts monitored here and in Hong Kong that the protest notes accused Moscow of "grave provocation with a view to supporting the rabid anti-China
hysteria they have whipped up at home."
The NCNA broadcast monitored here said the Soviets began dispatching military probes into and around the contested Ussuri River island beginning March 4, two days after the bloody battle there, and continuing through last Wednesday.
The island is called Damsky by the Soviets and Chen Pao by the Chinese, both of whom claim it. At least 31 Soviet border guards and "many" Chinese troops were killed there March 2 in a fight that has caused threat and counterthreat to flow between Moscow and Peking ever since.
22 KANSAN Mar. 14 1969
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