Word: cypriote
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...both the Palestinian liberation movement and Cyprus. Yasser Arafat's followers, he said, were "little people and idiots." Sadat announced a break in diplomatic relations with Cyprus' Greek government and dismissed President Spyros Kyprianou as "a dwarf (the Egyptian is 5 ft. 9 in., while the Cypriot is 5 ft. 4 in.). "Cyprus should explain to me," said a Sadat close to tears, "the treachery that was committed against my sons...
...this point President Kyprianou promised them Cypriot passports and safe conduct to Athens in exchange for the hostages. In the course of negotiations, Kyprianou received two fateful overseas telephone calls. The first was from Arafat in Beirut. The P.L.O. leader was furious because a close aide was among the hostages. Arafat offered the services of a twelve-man squad of experienced gunmen. Kyprianou accepted and dispatched an airliner to Beirut to pick them up. The squad, armed with Soviet AK-47 submachine guns, was kept out of sight inside the terminal, waiting for a crack at the hijackers. Later, there...
...freed, Sadat alerted the Egyptian army's crack Saiqa (Lightning) commando team and ordered it sent to Larnaca. Cairo merely informed Kyprianou that "we have people on the way to help rescue the hostages." Clearly, Sadat was preparing for an Entebbe-like raid. When the Egyptian transport arrived, Cypriot officials were stunned to discover that the "helpers" were Commando General Nabil Shukry and his assault team. Most were wearing combat suits. For some unexplained reason, several commandos were disguised for undercover work, some in sport clothes, a few in bell-bottom denims and platform shoes...
...attack. "My first thought was that this was a deliberate diversion. I was sure that a killer team must be climbing up the steps to the airplane under cover and unseen." But there was no killer team. In fact, no returning fire came from the DC-8. Instead, astonished Cypriot officials immediately ordered their national guardsmen to shoot the commandos. The Egyptians were caught in a deadly fusillade; the Jeep was hit by grenades, its occupants killed. Most of the outgunned Egyptians took shelter in a nearby plane. Finally they surrendered. Then the hijackers meekly turned over their weapons...
...trouble soon came as the Palestinians were conducting doorway negotiations with a Cypriot intermediary. The Egyptian commando Jeep suddenly rolled across the tarmac, guns blazing. The cockpit was a storm of flying glass. Puffs of insulation fell like hail...