Word: baath
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Arab Liberation Front is composed of Palestinians sympathetic to the radical Iraqi Baath Party. Commanded by Abdel Wahab Kayyali, 37, the A.L.F. has only about 100 full-time fedayeen and is seldom involved in terrorist raids...
Damascus' understandable determination to celebrate "the liberation of Quneitra" added more confusion to an already massive logistical problem. Thousands of Baath party faithful, as well as plain sightseers, trucked and bused toward Quneitra, their vehicles festooned with Syrian flags and homemade banners. A traffic jam several miles long stalled hundreds of official limousines, military vehicles, donkey carts and trucks piled with returning refugees, stoves, bedrolls and furniture. Red-bereted military police struggled to bring order out of chaos, occasionally shooting their AK-47 automatic rifles into the air to get attention. Reminders of the October fighting were plentiful. Occasionally...
...years after it gained independence from the French in 1945, Syria underwent a generation of coups and countercoups. One of the most significant revolts happened in 1963 when the Baathist (Renaissance) movement came to power, preaching Arab unity and Arab socialism. But the Baath government eventually dissolved into fighting factions, and in 1970 Defense Minister Hafez Assad turned out President Noureddine Atassi's government and took control himself...
Split Personality. Assad's National Progressive Front government has been the most stable in some 20 years because it includes not only Baathists but also Socialists and Communists. More significantly, Assad has so far successfully balanced the major elements that constitute power in Syria: the army, the Baath Party Organization, Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Routine matters are handled by the Cabinet and the 186-man Parliament, while all issues affecting Syria's security are referred to the 21-member Baath Party High Command, acting as a court of appeal. But it is the army that wields...
Assad's socialist Baath regime maintains a no-compromise position toward Israel, which captured chunks of the Golan Heights in 1967 and extended its gains in the October war. But in secret meetings in Damascus last week, hardliners and moderates in the Baath National Command engaged in fierce debates over how Syria should act. The hardliners, headed by Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, insisted that the cease-fire agreement should be Syria's only concession until Israel withdraws from all occupied territory. The moderates, led by Premier Mahmoud Ayoubi, reportedly were agreeable to a phased Israeli withdrawal...