Word: amal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...years French soldiers of the United Nations peacekeeping force and the moderate Shi'ite Amal militia had been friendly. Last week the peace was shattered by the thunder of rocket-propelled grenades and the crack of automatic weapons resounding through the dusty, Amal-controlled village of Marrakeh. Reason: as French guards at a U.N. security checkpoint attempted to disarm a local Amal commander, his bodyguard pulled his own gun. The French responded with a fusillade that killed both Shi'ites. Before long, 100 Amal fighters roared into Marrakeh, their guns blazing away at French positions. By the time Amal Leader...
...Israelis, who now control a six-mile by 40-mile security zone in the south. The extremists, including Hizballah, or Party of God, and Islamic Jihad, which is believed to be a terrorist unit within Hizballah, want to create in Lebanon an Iranian-style Islamic republic. The mainstream Amal, by contrast, wants to ensure that the Shi'ites have a major role in the Lebanon that eventually emerges from the destruction and chaos of the past eleven years...
...then the Amal movement, led by the urbane Shi'ite lawyer Nabih Berri, passionately shared the Israeli goal of driving the P.L.O. from southern Lebanon. The well-funded and heavily armed P.L.O. fighters had overrun large parts of southern Lebanon and Beirut, and the Shi'ites were the principal victims of their arbitrary power. The Israeli expulsion of the P.L.O., together with the crushing of its Sunni Muslim allies, created a power vacuum that was quickly filled by the emergent Shi'ites, who have little interest in seeing the Palestinians return...
Moderate Shi'ites share that goal with the Israelis, but pressure from their extremist brothers prevents them from publicly admitting it. Instead, elements of Amal have joined with more radical coreligionists in the self-defeating policy of attacking the Israeli security forces. Hizballah is actively helping the P.L.O. re-establish itself on Israel's northern border. Says a P.L.O. official: "We have a very important objective in common with Hizballah: to fight Israel...
Israeli officials have proposed sharing security responsibilities in southern Lebanon with Amal, on condition that the Shi'ites guarantee the safety of the northern Israeli settlements. Scoffs Daoud Daoud, the independent-minded Amal military chief in the south: "A nation protects its security from inside its own borders, not from inside someone else's." The dilemma of the moderate Shi'ites is stark: Israel will not trust them, and radicals in their ranks will reject any sort of cooperative effort with Israel when their fragile is threatened. After last week's clash with the French U.N. troops, both sides issued...