Word: assad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Assad's confidence is not misplaced...
...year after Israel's humiliation of Syria during the invasion of Lebanon, Assad has rebuilt not only his country's armed forces but its image and its diplomatic position. Far from humbled, he has acquired a decisive voice in the future of Lebanon and of the Palestinian movement. At home, thanks to a steel-fisted grip that has squelched most of the opposition to his regime, Assad is more secure than at any other time in his 13 years in office...
...Hafez Assad is as strong, perhaps stronger, than ever...
...refusing to withdraw Syria's 60,000 troops from Lebanon, Assad scotched an Israeli-Lebanese accord in which Israel would have pulled its 36,000 soldiers out of the embattled country. As a result, the Israelis were busy last week making final preparations to move their front line in western Lebanon to a more secure location 17 miles south of Beirut. In the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, meanwhile, Syrians and Israelis remain poised within sight of each other across a tense, mile-wide line. Assad's influence has also reached right into the inner circles...
...Lebanon, Assad is fanning the flames of hatred among various factions. Pro-and anti-Syrian militias clashed in the northern port of Tripoli last week, while Druze and Christian fighters exchanged fire in the Chouf Mountains southeast of Bei rut. The Druze, who are supported by Syria, have organized a coalition with the deliberate aim of under mining the government of President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Christian. Earlier this month, government newspapers in Syria bluntly called for Gemayel's resignation. Meanwhile, in an attempt to gain greater leverage over the Palestine Liberation Organization, Assad shored up a rebellion against...