Word: assad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Only the Soviet Union can exert a moderating influence on Syria. The Syrian military is literally a Soviet creation. If Moscow threatens to stop arms shipments to Damascus, President Assad would be forced to negotiate. And in fact, some Mid-east observer consider the Hayley's reduce of Syrien efforts against Arafat crucial in bringing about the partial--though short lived-cease fire between PLO factions in short, what the U.S. can only hope to accomplish with guns and blooded--get the Syrians out of Lebonon--the Soviet can do through coercion...
...massing 25,000 men and heavy armaments around the camps. He told a Beirut newspaper that the Syrians were trying to force him out of Tripoli, but insisted, "I'm staying with my people and my forces to face our common destiny." He appealed to Syrian President Hafez Assad to stop the fighting and to other countries to help avert a possible "massacre" of his followers. For weeks there had been rumors that Assad was determined to bring down Arafat before the next Arab summit conference, which is due to convene Nov. 25 in Riyadh...
Besides sharing Iran's hatred of Iraq, Syrian President Assad has received something from Khomeini that is exceedingly precious to him: recognition of the religious legitimacy of the minority Alawite Muslim sect, to which the Syrian President and his loyalist adherents belong. It is altogether possible, Helms believes, that the Syrians are helping the pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon as a way of repaying the Ayatullah for giving the Alawites his seal of approval. Both Syria and Iran denied any role in the bombings, though newspapers in the two countries called the attack justified...
...signs last week were mixed. Gemayel telephoned Syrian President Assad and invited him to send a delegate to the conference; it was the first formal contact between the two countries since last spring, when Gemayel earned Assad's enmity by signing a troop withdrawal accord with Israel. On the other hand, the Progressive Socialist Party, led by Druze Chieftain Walid Jumblatt, issued a fresh set of conditions for the talks, including a complete halt to cease-fire violations and a lifting of the nightly curfew in Beirut. Jumblatt himself hinted that the talks might break up over a dispute...
...also in Israel's 1948 war of independence and its 1967 occupation of the West Bank. In time, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians moved to Lebanon, eventually upsetting the country's fragile political balance between Muslims and Christians. When Lebanon erupted into civil war in 1975, Syrian President Hafez Assad sent in troops. But what began as the backbone of an Arab peace-keeping force eventually became a permanent occupation. After Menachem Begin became...