Word: damascus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...also eager to wash their hands of the hijack affair as quickly as possible on June 30, when they began to release the remaining 39 American hostages. "I thought surely they'd give us a body search as we left Beirut," Hill recalled. "If not there, at least in Damascus before they set us free." Nothing of the sort happened, and Hill was able to smuggle out his film, concealing it in his underwear...
...going to retaliate," observed a top-ranking U.S. intelligence official. "It was an attack aimed against them, and they will not let this go by." One possible target is Abu Nidal's main base at Tripoli, Libya. He is also reported to have a base on the outskirts of Damascus. A retaliatory raid there would seriously challenge the Syrian air force...
Another coincidence complicated the retaliation possibilities. Assad had invited Jordan's King Hussein to meet with him in Damascus early this week, the first such get-together in six years. The two have been feuding since 1980, partly over the Camp David peace plan. Some Western diplomats believe that Hussein was willing to go to Damascus to try to preserve his role in the process, which has been stalled by Arafat's refusal to recognize Israel. By meeting with Assad, who has ties with anti-Arafat P.L.O. dissidents, Hussein may hope to prod Arafat into a compromise. Assad, however, seems...
...Revolutionary Brigades, the Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims and, recently. Black September. In the early years gunmen under Abu Nidal's command are credited with having assaulted Syrian embassies and other targets, spurred on by Syria's crackdown on Palestinian forces in Lebanon and tensions between Iraq and the Damascus government of President Hafez Assad. Three months after the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic 1977 visit to Israel, Abu Nidal hitmen murdered an Egyptian newspaper editor and hijacked a jetliner at Larnaca in Cyprus. In 1981, as Iraq courted the U.S. and Western Europe, the seat...
Even though there is evidence that Abu Nidal's headquarters is now in Libya and that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is picking up the estimated $14 million annual tab for Abu Nidal's organization, some Western intelligence agencies note that the Fatah Revolutionary Council retains an office in Damascus as well as a training camp in Lebanon's Syrian-dominated Bekaa Valley...