The World - News from June 2, 1989

Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat has ordered the formation of a 3,500-member Palestinian army in southern Lebanon, Jane’s Defense Weekly reported. The force--each member must first be approved by Arafat--is to become “the core of a regular army of an independent Palestine of the future,” the London-based military affairs magazine said. It would replace “the existing chaos of assorted unruly militias, most of them affiliated with Arab countries and not always friendly to Arafat,” Jane’s said.