Word: assad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...release seemed to be a most unlikely liberator, Syria's Assad. Though he is an ironfisted dictator and a Soviet ally, Assad has carefully nurtured a reputation as a man who can be relied on to deliver on any deal to which he puts his name (see box). It was his involvement and coordination with Washington that produced Sunday's success...
...came a seemingly offhand bombshell. Said Berri: "We are prepared to hand the kidnaped persons over to a Western embassy, Swiss or French, whichever they (U.S. officials) choose." Alternatively, he said, Amal might "send the airplane with all the hostages to Damascus." Berri attached one giant condition: Syrian President Assad, or whoever else took custody of the Americans, would have to pledge not to set them free until all Lebanese prisoners in Atlit had been released by Israel. In Washington, White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan was awakened at about 3:30 a.m. by a call from the White...
...ally, Washington was anxious to get the hostages out of Beirut and into Damascus, where the U.S. has a well-staffed embassy that would be dealing with a full-fledged government. (The Lebanese government, in which Berri is Minister of Justice, exists to a great extent only on paper.) Assad had been in contact with both Shultz and Reagan and promised to try to play a helpful role. Since his troops occupy strategic portions of Lebanon, he has influence with all factions in that nation's internal wars...
...Assad managed to extract an important clarification from each side. No happier than France or Switzerland to act as a warden over U.S. prisoners, he - persuaded Berri to stop demanding that the hostages remain in Syria until all of Israel's detainees were released. Conversely, from Washington he won an assurance that those detainees would be granted their freedom. Ironically, in the same Friday speech that evidently angered Berri, Reagan carefully reaffirmed that fact. "Israel had always intended to release them and had made that very clear," said the President...
...widely believed that both Iran and Syria support and condone terrorism. Weinberger, for instance, claims that the U.S. has discovered strong links between Hizballah and the Khomeini regime. "Can anyone seriously doubt that Syria's Assad has the means or the methods to shut down operations like the TWA hijacking?" asked the Wall Street Journal. "We should give him the incentive to do so" -- by bombing Syrian military targets. Nonetheless, the degree of control exercised by Iran and Syria is a matter of dispute in intelligence circles. Some experts feel that both countries have lately sought to restrain...