Word: damascus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Hizballah's ties to Tehran are abundantly clear. Leaders visit the Iranian capital regularly and reportedly get instructions from Iranian embassies in Damascus and Beirut. Khomeini is said to spend anywhere from $15 million to $50 million a year to finance Hizballah activities. Many Lebanese villages have so embraced Khomeini's way that their mosques and squares are adorned with pictures of the Ayatullah and even Iranian flags. Tehran reciprocates by putting pictures of Lebanese Shi'ite "martyrs" on Iranian postage stamps. Says Hussein Musawi, leader of the Hizballah-allied Islamic Amal: "We do not believe in the presence...
...Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev wishes to simultaneously expand his influence in the Arab world and pursue overtures toward Israel. Thus he has recently sold to Syria at least one squadron of MiG-29s, the Soviet equivalent of Israel's American-made F-16 jet fighters, but refuses to supply Damascus with sophisticated SS-23 land missiles. The disclosure that Israel possesses a comparable weapon has forced Gorbachev to denounce the missile in order to curry favor with Arab nations...
Flying into Damascus last week without fanfare or press conference, Vernon Walters, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, held what he called "very useful, very fruitful, very cordial" meetings with Syrian President Hafez Assad. It was a remarkable if discreet achievement after years of deep enmity between the two countries, which culminated in last year's recall of U.S. Ambassador William Eagleton after an attempt by Syrian-backed terrorists to blow up an El Al flight in Britain. Though U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon John Kelly says it is "premature to talk about rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria," Washington...
...most encouraging sign of Syrian moderation came in early June, when Assad closed down the Damascus offices of Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist-for-hire. Abu Nidal, who received attention in last week's Iran- contra hearings for his threats against Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, is suspected of masterminding the Rome and Vienna airport massacres that killed 19 in December 1985. Moreover, while still railing against Israel, Syrian radio now broadcasts stinging criticisms of terrorist acts. One statement specifically condemned taking "innocents and journalists" hostage, an obvious reference to last month's kidnaping of former ABC Correspondent Charles Glass...
...With 7,500 Syrian troops in West Beirut and an additional 25,000 in north and east Lebanon, Assad has been embarrassed by Glass's kidnaping. Assad's dilemma: fighting the Beirut terrorists would, in effect, mean confronting their chief patron, Iran, which Damascus supports in its protracted war with Iraq. According to Israeli sources, when Syrian Army General Ghazi Kenaan led his troops into Beirut in February, he wanted to curb the power of Hizballah, the pro-Iranian Shi'ite group based in the Lebanese capital that is believed to hold most of the 24 foreign hostages, including nine...