1.
GV Lebanese troops outside ruined residence of Camille Chamoun
0.08

2.
MVs Damage to house (5 shots)
0.30

3.
MV Burnt out Bentley
0.34

4.
GV Wrecked cars outside villa
0.38

5.
MVs & CUs Lebanese army at street checkpoint (5 shots)
0.56

6.
MVs Street market (3 shots)
1.05

7.
GVs People in streets (3 shots)
1.20

8.
GV People sitting in outdoor cafe
1.23

9.
GV People queuing outside shop
1.26

10.
MV Market stall and street scene
1.39



Initials CL/2230 CL/2255



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Left wingers burned and looted the elegant villa of right wing Lebanese Foreign Minister Camille Chamoun on Sunday night (25 January) as the Syrian-backed ceasefire appeared to be taking hold on civil wartorn Beirut.

The Moslem looters struck at the ex-President's villa, which overlooks the Mediterranean, only hours after Mr. Chamoun had welcomed the Syrian peace efforts. As a result of the Syrian intervention in the nine-month civil war, troops of the Palestinian Liberation Army patrol the streets of the capital.

As the looters ransacked Mr. Chamoun's home today they set fire to his car, leaving it a charred wreck.

As a result of negotiations, initiated by Syria, Lebanese Premier, Rashid Karami, announced that gunmen would start being withdrawn from Beirut streets the following day.

There was still fighting in the district around the big seafront hotels, but neither right nor left wingers appeared to regard it as a major new battle.

Mr. Karami said the removal from the streets of gunmen from the warring factions would be completed in the 36 hours beginning at 6 a.m. (local time) the following day.

The success of this latest ceasefire, of which countless others have been broken in the last nine months, will be a test of Syria's mediation and of the effectiveness of the PLA units brought in with Syria's approval to keep order in the Moslem districts.

Lebanese Christian leaders expressed satisfaction with their talks with the Syrian mediation mission.

Syrian Foreign Minister, Abdel-Halim Khaddam, who chaired the mediation meeting which agreed to use the PLA troops, said he would confer with Premier Karami, who submitted his resignation seven days earlier. He said the situation in Lebanon at that stage was good.

Meanwhile, in most Beirut streets, life had returned to normal but there was sporadic small arms fire.