Word: amal
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...Lebanese sovereignty. Nonetheless, most Lebanese would rather preserve the symbol than suffer a relapse into violence and anarchy. As tension mounted last week, gunmen once again fired mortars and machine guns across the "green line" separating Christian and Muslim Beirut. Renewed fighting between the rival Shi'ite Muslim organizations -- Amal, supported by Syria, and the Islamic fundamentalist Hizballah, backed by Iran -- is also a prospect. Last week three Amal militia commanders were killed in an ambush south of Beirut, presumably by Hizballah gunmen...
...headbands identified the men as members of Hizballah, the disciplined and fanatical Shi'ite militia supported by Iran. After three weeks of combat, Hizballah's militants, led by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, had seized control of virtually the entire area of Beirut's southern suburbs from the Syrian-backed Amal militia. Nearly 300 people were killed in the clashes and some 1,000 wounded...
...followed 24 hours later by the entry into the area of a peacekeeping contingent of Syrian troops. On Friday morning, 900 Syrian infantrymen, armed with machine guns and grenade launchers and accompanied by Lebanese police, moved into a buffer zone between the warring militias. Under Syrian authority, Hizballah and Amal will be permitted to maintain political and information offices in the area, but their fighters will be disarmed...
...Muslim slums. Since May 6, fierce battles between rival militias had raged through the streets and alleys, causing many of the area's 250,000 residents to flee. In bloody hand-to-hand combat, the fanatical, pro- Iranian Hizballah had driven the more moderate, Syrian-backed Amal out of its positions and seized control of some 90% of the district...
...victory of Hizballah came after it had suffered a series of military setbacks in Shi'ite-dominated Southern Lebanon, first at the hands of Amal, then Israel, which killed as many as 40 of its guerrillas in a raid two weeks ago. Hizballah's new power will complicate efforts to free the 16 remaining foreign hostages in Lebanon, most of whom are thought to be held in the Beirut suburbs by kidnapers with ties to the militant Shi'ite faction...