Word: damascus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...precise role of the Russians was difficult to define. It seemed impossible that Moscow, which has advisers throughout the Syrian army, was unaware of Damascus' intention to invade. The Russians may not have known the extent of the thrust, however, Moscow made every public pose of trying to check the fighting. Yet some U.S. analysts speculated that the Russians might have been playing a clever double role: instructing their advisers with the Syrian army to let the tanks roll, but to appear as the peace saver by pulling them back if they failed. It was not necessarily that the Soviets...
...including almost 250 tanks, belonged to the guerrillas' Palestine Liberation Army. Indeed, the vehicles did bear the red and olive-green emblems of the P.L.A. Actually, the emblems had been hastily painted, and most of the equipment and troops belonged to the Syrian army's reserve in Damascus. They were rolling into Jordan not only to help the fedayeen but also to embarrass the rival Iraqi Baathist government. Baghdad, which keeps a 12,000-man division in Jordan for the war with Israel, refused to order its troops to move against Hussein...
...Syria gave unqualified vocal support to the guerrillas, defying Egypt's suggestion that they stay out of the dispute. "We will not spare one drop of blood to help," said Syrian President Noureddine Atassi. The U.S. and Israel hinted that they might intervene if the regimes in Baghdad and Damascus sent regular troops to reinforce the guerrillas. But at week's end Amman Radio reported that a Syrian armored brigade had crossed into Jordan with Soviet-built tanks. The radio added that Jordanian troops repulsed the invaders "with heavy losses...
...ambassadors from other Arab states and told them: "Will you kindly inform your governments that King Hussein, with mature consideration, has drawn up a detailed plan which is bound to end in a blood bath? I possess irrefutable proof that he intends to liquidate the Palestinian resistance." In Amman, Damascus and Baghdad, guerrilla radios suddenly began crackling with curiously coded messages. "The dinner is hot," said one. "Ghazi is marching to Haifa," said another. In plainer language, the fedayeen command advised its men to "keep your finger on the trigger until the fascist military rule has been removed." In Amman...
...hijackings of recent years have victimized mostly Western passengers and companies. Many of the pirates have been professed Communists or sympathizers bound for places like Cuba and North Korea, or Arab irregulars headed anywhere from Algiers to Damascus. But Communist airlines have not escaped the skyjackers. In the past year alone, at least ten East European craft have been commandeered by passengers and diverted to Western or neutral airports. No plane has yet been hijacked from the Soviet Union, however, probably because Russian crews have shown a willingness to use firearms to stop them. Nearly all of the hijackers have...