Word: beirutization
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Each time embattled Beirut tries to pick up the pieces after a makeshift truce dampens political sectarian violence, something happens to rekindle the fighting and paralyze the city. Last week, only four days after the start of another ceasefire, the multifactional civil war between right-wing Christian Phalangists and left-wing Moslems raged anew. In one day there were at least 200 kidnapings. Two of the victims were Americans: Charles Gallagher and William Dykes, the director and deputy director of the regional center of the U.S. Information Service. The first foreigners to be kidnaped during the latest troubles, they were...
...latest round of fighting had been sparked by the discovery of the mutilated body of a Moslem cab driver, killed in the previous week's battles. Mortars, rockets and machine guns exploded in one of the noisiest and most prolonged cannonades yet to afflict Beirut. An estimated 150 died and 450 lay wounded. As armed bands disrupted the city, Beirutis had to deal with so-called flying roadblocks that were set up and later torn down in hit-and-run fashion...
Incapable of controlling the semifeudal political lords and their private militias who are responsible for the violence, Premier Rashid Karami faced increasing pressure to resign. He tentatively increased patrols by army troops in Beirut's downtown business sector and at all entrances to the city. Because most commanding officers in the 18,000-man army are Christian, Moslems fiercely oppose large-scale use of the military. Karami so far agrees and has warned that bringing in the army could destroy the country. But as the righting continued unabated, it seemed that the country was already approaching the edge...
...sectarian fighting between left-wing Moslems and right-wing Christians might halt; they have plunged when violence again erupted. Last week was typical. As yet another attempt at a truce seemed to be taking hold at the start of the week, some of the sand and cement barricades in Beirut were pulled down. Militiamen from both sides poured out of their strongholds; some embraced and even kissed one another. Banks reopened, shopkeepers unshuttered their windows, and traffic soon clogged streets as the capital's residents dashed out to replenish their stocks of food and other supplies...
...mood of good will was quickly shattered. Full-scale fighting broke out between the Phalange-dominated neighborhood of Dekwaneh in the eastern sector of Beirut and a Palestinian refugee camp at Tel Zaatar, controlled by the radical-leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P.). The two sides hurled rockets and mortars at each other; the well-armed fedayeen even fired antiaircraft guns at the Phalange areas. As the fighting spread to other neighborhoods (see map), banks again closed, and merchants took goods from their stores to the relative safety of their homes. The toll of last week...