Word: bekaa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...what many feared might be a combined land and air attack inside Lebanon. As if preparing for the worst, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin warned, "We have from time to time to take decisions to send our sons to war." Syrian forces were similarly mobilized. In Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, where most of Syria's 22,000 peace-keeping troops are stationed, Syrian armored units turned their guns southward to face the possible Israeli blitz. In Syria, airborne and infantry reservists were called up, and hospital wards were cleared to make room for potential military casualties...
...crux of the crisis was Syria's deployment two weeks ago of three batteries of Soviet-made SA-6 antiaircraft missiles in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon. Israel continued to demand that the missiles be removed from Lebanon and threatened military action. It was not as though the missiles were there merely for show, after all. On several occasions last week, Syria fired a succession of the SA-6s and managed to shoot down a pilotless Israeli reconnaissance drone...
...risk of far more casualties than the Israeli public would tolerate. Moreover, Syria has taken advantage of Israel's hesitation to beef up its own ground forces along the border. An entire armored brigade, with about 100 tanks, was moved into Lebanon to reinforce positions in the Bekaa Valley. Concluded a Western military attache in Damascus last week: "It is definitely more difficult for Israel to attack the missile sites now than it was a week...
...hopes that the Habib mission might yet produce an understanding among all the parties. One possible avenue lay in a plan outlined to TIME by a high Begin aide last week. Under the proposal, the Christian Phalangists and Syrians would disengage their forces near Zahle and elsewhere in the Bekaa Valley, as reportedly called for in the Habib formula. Israel, however, instead of ceasing its overflights in the Bekaa Valley, would pledge not to attack the Syrians on the ground or otherwise threaten their status as a peace-keeping force in Lebanon. If the Syrians were to accept this live...
They stood out like glistening white beacons against the green countryside, their silver warheads gleaming lethally in the sunshine. Beside the main highway from Beirut to Damascus, a dozen of them were poised on a gentle, flower-strewn ridge that overlooks the verdant Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon. Farther to the north, outside the airbase at Riyaq where Israeli Phantoms shot down two Syrian helicopters two weeks ago, another dozen were perched on newly dug mounds of earth. These were Syria's Soviet-made SA-6 missiles, one of the most potent antiaircraft weapons in the Syrian armory...