Word: beirutization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...civil war that has transformed Lebanon into a scarred battlefield took a sudden and risky turn for the worse last week. Two Lebanese air force Hawker-Hunter fighter jets strafed and rocketed Moslem and Palestinian troops that were besieging Damur, a rightist-held town a few miles south of Beirut International Airport. The attack represented the first time that Lebanese armed forces had plunged openly into major combat since the shooting began nine months...
...refugee camps, Tal al Zaatar and Jisr al Basha. A third camp, Dbayeh, was attacked and captured last week. Christian spokesmen insist that they were not trying to starve out the 30,000 inhabitants of the camps but simply attempting to pinch off shipments of arms. Many observers in Beirut believe the blockades are intended to dramatize the role the Palestinians play as a "state within a state" in Lebanon while the United Nations Security Council debate on the Middle East is in progress. A major Christian condition for a cease-fire is that the government demonstrate a clear control...
...Beirut, meanwhile, the seaside hotel district was raked by mortar and rocket fire for the third time in three months. The nearby U.S. embassy is sued steel helmets to staffers and fer ried them to and from work in armored limousines. Fighting also swept through the city's financial district, and got so close to Beirut Airport that the facility closed down for the first time in the civil war. By week's end the recent fighting brought the war's toll to over 9,000 dead...
...factions have shattered a score of cease-fires so far, how ever, and the air force's entry into the fighting further weakens the already slim possibility of a lasting truce. Syria's armed forces chief of staff, Major Gen eral Hikmat Shehabi, arrived in Beirut just before the strike at Damur to try to help resolve the crisis. His and other Arab efforts seemed to bear some small fruit: As this week began, Premier Karami announced yet another cease fire. But it was doubtful that the new truce would prove any less fragile than its short-lived...
...week's end, both the bitter fighting and the blockade continued; 75 people were reported killed. Elsewhere in the battle-scarred Beirut area, fighting between the Phalange and the mostly-Moslem leftists again spread into the eastern suburbs and to the luxury hotel district on the Mediterranean. Not only has this war diverted the P.L.O.'s energies, but the spectacle of Christians and Moslems battling each other has also challenged the Palestinian contention that a secular, democratic and non-sectarian state can replace Israel. In such a new nation, so the argument goes, Moslems, Jews and Christians would...