Word: beirutization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Finally, last week, Jeremy Levin, 52, Beirut bureau chief for the Atlanta- based Cable News Network, saw his chance. There was slack in the chain that bound him, just enough to wiggle free. "I got the chain off," he said. "It's the usual cliche. I tied three blankets together, climbed out the window onto the balcony and went down the blankets...
...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...
Islamic Jihad, the radical Shi'ite Muslim group that has claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist acts, including the October 1983 bombing that resulted in the deaths of 241 U.S. servicemen in Beirut, had said repeatedly that it was holding Levin. Last week it issued a statement contending that it had decided to release him because "we have established that the American correspondent was not involved in any espionage or subversion against Islamic forces." The militants denied that Levin had escaped. Syria went along with the contention that Levin had been released. Ambassador to the U.S. Rafiq Jouejati said...
...region fear that as soon as the Israelis are gone, southern Lebanon will explode into bloody anarchy as sectarian groups, including the newly powerful Shi'ite Muslim extremists, begin settling old scores. Last week 700 Lebanese troops joined the 1,200 already deployed in the Kharroub region between Beirut and the Israeli lines on the Awali. Their role: to fill the gap left by the departing Israelis...
...have perpetrated the December 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and other targets in Kuwait. This would explain offers to free at least some of the Americans in exchange for the release of 17 Shi'ite terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait for the bombings. But many Western diplomats in Beirut believe that another Shi'ite organization, called Hizballah (Party of God), might also be holding the Americans. Callers to Western news agencies have claimed responsibility for the abductions in the name of Islamic Jihad, which is believed to be a nom de guerre used by various shadowy Islamic fundamentalist terror groups...