Word: beirutization
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Once again the grainy color photographs showed the harrowed faces of hostages. This time the pictures of four Americans and two Frenchmen, delivered last Thursday to several daily newspapers in Beirut and printed by some of them the next day, came accompanied by an ominous warning: unless the government of Kuwait agreed to release 17 Muslim fundamentalist terrorists jailed there for bombing the U.S. and French embassies in December 1983, the American captives would suffer "catastrophic consequences" and their captors would "terrorize America and France forever...
...Until now none of the Westerners kidnaped by the shadowy forces of Islamic Jihad, or Islamic Holy War, has been killed. But the situation is worsening as the Shi'ite extremists step up their demands. The four Americans pictured in the terrorist photographs were: Terry Anderson, 37, Associated Press Beirut bureau chief; the Rev. Benjamin Weir, 60, a Presbyterian minister; the Rev. Lawrence Jenco, 50, a Roman Catholic priest; and U.S. Embassy Official William Buckley, 56, who was abducted on March 16, 1984, making him the longest-held American captive. A fifth American, Peter Kilburn, 60, a librarian...
...warned the government of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, which is believed to be providing Islamic Jihad with material and spiritual assistance, that the U.S. will hold Iran responsible for the fate of the Beirut hostages. Three months ago, when Islamic Jihad threatened to kill one of the Americans it was holding, Secretary of State George Shultz told Iran that it would suffer military consequences if any of the captives in Lebanon were harmed. Though it was by no means clear precisely what the Secretary had in mind, a senior State Department official added last week, "That is a permanent warning...
When a car bomb exploded on March 8 in a Beirut suburb, killing more than 80 people and injuring 200, there was little doubt as to the attack's target. The detonation took place just 50 yds. from the home of Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual leader of the Hizballah (Party of God), a militant pro-Iranian Shi'ite group. Several of Fadlallah's bodyguards were among the victims, but the sheik, who was in a nearby mosque, was uninjured. No one ever claimed responsibility for the incident...
...Under intense pressure from Damascus, the Lebanese Forces, a 6,000-strong Christian militia, replaced its commander, Samir Geagea, with Elias Hobeika. Geagea had instigated a revolt last March against President Amin Gemayel, accusing him of doing Syria's bidding. Geagea's downfall was marked by intense fighting in Beirut along the "green line" dividing the Christian and the predominantly Muslim sectors. Hobeika is the man who led the Phalangists into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps south of Beirut in September 1982, where they murdered 700 to 800 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. In assuming his new command, he declared...