Word: colonel
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Last summer, making common cause with Communists and crypto-Communists, Lieut. Colonel Abdel Hamid Serraj, 31, gained the upper hand in the army, placed Syria's 25,000 troops under joint command with Nasser's, and pushed deals with the Soviet bloc that by last week brought the bulk of some 100 T-34 tanks, 200 armored personnel carriers and 20 MIG jets into the country. After the invasion of Egypt, Serraj blew up the Iraq Petroleum Co.'s pipeline that carries 80% of Iraq's oil across Syria to the Mediterranean, and sent a brigade...
...concerned over Communist arms moving through the Dardanelles and landing in Syrian ports, but has reason to know that some Syrian military and political higher-ups are also disturbed at Communist influence and the dangerous ambitions of Colonel Serraj. In both Washington and Paris last week, the word Guatemala popped up in speculations about Syria-meaning that a more pro-Western government might be encouraged to seize power...
...ambitious neighbor Nasser. Opening the Libyan Parliament, he stressed the "strongest resentment at the aggression of which our sister state, Egypt, has been a victim," and asked for a "review" of Libya's treaty with Britain. But this done, Libya itself bravely stood up to Egypt. The Colonel. Chief provocation was one Colonel Ishmail Sadek, who had turned up in Libya as Egypt's military attache. He proclaimed something called the "Front for the Struggle of the Libyan People," with the announced objective of organizing "the people's resistance to the oppressive imperialists." The colonel made speeches...
This was too much. The Libyan government asked him to leave. The irrepressible colonel refused to. When Libyan police surrounded the Egyptian embassy, the colonel took up position on the roof with a machine gun, while leaflets poured out into the streets of Tripoli exhorting the citizens to protest. For three days the siege went on, with the colonel appearing at intervals on the roof to flourish his machine gun and peer hopefully down the street for rioting demonstrators to answer his call. None came, and Colonel Sadek disconsolately agreed to depart...
Closing School. The colonel might have been exceeding his instructions. But the Libyans were taking no chances. Last week the government fired its Egyptian attorney general, expelled seven of Libya's 600 Egyptian teachers, and, just to be sure the remainder had no chance to foment further trouble, closed all schools until further notice...