Word: beirutization
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...situation for Americans in Lebanon was worsening in 1986, but Joseph Cicippio thought his low-profile position as acting comptroller of the American University of Beirut made him an unlikely target for terrorists. He was further protected, he believed, by his marriage to a Lebanese woman and his conversion to Islam in 1985. Nonetheless, as he left his campus apartment on Sept. 12, the Norristown, Pa., native was ambushed by four gunmen of the Shi'ite Revolutionary Justice Organization, pistol-whipped and loaded into the trunk of a car. He was the second American to be abducted in Lebanon that...
Despite the danger, Cicippio, now 58, had genuinely enjoyed Beirut since he moved there in 1984. Educated at Rutgers University and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, he gave up a 25-year banking career in the late 1970s, after the breakup of his first marriage, to work as a shipping manager in Jidda, Saudi Arabia. Following a four-year stint as an employee of an oil cartel in London, Cicippio accepted the job at the American University in June 1984. "None of us wanted him to go, but he had made up his mind," said his brother...
Cicippio has seven children from his first marriage. In 1985 he wed Elham Ghandour, 35, a secretary at the American embassy in East Beirut. The couple had reportedly discussed leaving the war-torn city only weeks before Cicippio was kidnaped...
...voice broke with emotion when he ended the appeal with this message for his Lebanese wife, Elham Ghandour, a secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut...
...American people are always the victims of Israel's politics and President Bush has not helped to free us," said Cicippio, who was acting comptroller of the American University of Beirut when he was abducted Sept...