Word: baalbek
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...group of passengers, ranging in number between six and ten, who had been removed from the plane during its second Beirut stopover. There were reports that they were in the hands of the fanatical, pro-Iranian Hizballah (Party of God) organization, and had been moved from Beirut to Baalbek in the Syrian-dominated Bekaa Valley. This region has been a base for Islamic extremist groups over the past three years, and is thought to be the area where some of the seven American, one British and four French kidnap victims are currently being held...
...join the government of President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite, infuriated the growing number of Khomeini- inspired zealots who want to turn Lebanon into an Islamic revolutionary state like Iran. One such group, called Islamic Amal, broke away in 1982 and set up headquarters in the eastern town of Baalbek under the leadership of Hussein Musawi, a former schoolteacher and pro-Iranian fanatic. Soon thereafter Iran sent hundreds of Revolutionary Guards into the Bekaa Valley to train an Islamic Amal militia and help Musawi consolidate his power...
Radical Shi'ite factions settled into a virtual viper's nest in Baalbek, an ancient city in the Bekaa Valley 40 miles east of Beirut. There a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, inspired by the Khomeini revolution, sent young Lebanese fanatics out on bottle-smashing sprees in the bars of Beirut, taught them how to rig cars with powerful bombs and prepared them to die for their cause. "Like Khomeini," says Gary Sick, a former National Security Council staffer and an expert on Islamic fundamentalism, "these Shi'ite fundamentalists are rejecting the entire Western system...
...Syrians led him to an army encampment near Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon. Then he was taken to a Syrian intelligence office, where he described his capture by a lone gunman on the streets of Beirut last March 7. Next Levin was driven to the Syrian Foreign Ministry in Damascus, where he was turned over to William Eagleton, the U.S. ambassador in Damascus. Said Levin, as tears rolled down his cheeks: "The Orwellian year of 1984 was not a very good one for me, but 1985 is starting out a hell of a lot better...
...went along with the contention that Levin had been released. Ambassador to the U.S. Rafiq Jouejati said in American TV interviews that the Syrian government had persuaded Levin's captors to free him. The area in Lebanon where Levin had been held is occupied by Syrian forces, although the Baalbek region is also patrolled by a 400-man contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who provide help to various local Shi'ite groups...