Word: assad
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Israel last week accused Syria's President Haffez Assad of replacing Soviet SA-6 and SA-8 antiaircraft missiles in Lebanon. Syria had deployed such weapons there in 1981, only to have them destroyed by the Israelis during their 1982 invasion. The redeployment into Lebanon's Bekaa Valley was made late in November after Israeli war planes had shot down two Syrian jets over Syria. An Israeli army spokesman disclosed the missile move publicly on Dec. 15. Other Israeli officials contended that the U.S. had secretly persuaded Assad to withdraw them. Assad did so but, showing his muscle...
Another coincidence complicated the retaliation possibilities. Assad had invited Jordan's King Hussein to meet with him in Damascus early this week, the first such get-together in six years. The two have been feuding since 1980, partly over the Camp David peace plan. Some Western diplomats believe that Hussein was willing to go to Damascus to try to preserve his role in the process, which has been stalled by Arafat's refusal to recognize Israel. By meeting with Assad, who has ties with anti-Arafat P.L.O. dissidents, Hussein may hope to prod Arafat into a compromise. Assad, however, seems...
...Socialist Muslims and, recently. Black September. In the early years gunmen under Abu Nidal's command are credited with having assaulted Syrian embassies and other targets, spurred on by Syria's crackdown on Palestinian forces in Lebanon and tensions between Iraq and the Damascus government of President Hafez Assad. Three months after the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic 1977 visit to Israel, Abu Nidal hitmen murdered an Egyptian newspaper editor and hijacked a jetliner at Larnaca in Cyprus. In 1981, as Iraq courted the U.S. and Western Europe, the seat of Abu Nidal's terrorist operations began...
...more than a decade, Syria's President Hafez Assad has insisted that the road to peace in the Middle East must pass through Damascus. At least two such detours through the Syrian capital have just taken place. On Dec. 28, the warlords of Lebanon's feuding militias assembled in Damascus to sign a Syrian-brokered agreement designed to end almost eleven years of civil war. Last week Assad's image was burnished further when Jordan's King Hussein traveled to Syria for the first time in six years...
...four times, twice alone. What was said during their seven hours of private discussions remains undisclosed. No joint communiqué was issued. Jordan's Prime Minister Zaid al Rifa'i revealed only that the talks had covered regional developments, Arab cooperation and bilateral relations. There were unconfirmed reports that Assad and Hussein had agreed to exchange ambassadors. But there were no hints that either man had yielded on two main points of contention: how to resolve the Palestinian question and how to end the gulf war, in which Jordan supports Iraq while Syria favors Iran...