Word: druzes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Druze militiamen swarmed around a U.S.-made armored personnel carrier that had just been abandoned by a fleeing Lebanese Army brigade...
Flashing two-fingered V salutes, the Druze shouted, "Victory is ours!" To cele brate the capture of the strategic crossroads of Khalde, on the coastal highway south of Beirut, one of the militiamen fed abandoned American ammunition into the vehicle's 50-cal. machine gun and fired ear-splitting bursts into the air. A few miles offshore, the menacing shape of the U.S. battleship New Jersey glided slowly past, like a big gray cat circling a bird cage. Its 16-in. guns, which had rained devastation on Druze strongholds in the Chouf Mountains the week before, were silent...
...time the Marines began pulling out, it was obvious that barring a series of miracles, the outcome could no longer be favorable to the U.S. As the week began, Muslim Druze militiamen shattered the 2,000-man Fourth Brigade, long touted as among the best fighting units in the Lebanese Army, in an 18-hour battle and then poured out of the Chouf Mountains onto the flat coastal strip. Bombing and strafing runs by two subsonic Hawker Hunter jet fighters, part of Gemayel's tiny air force, could not stop the Druze even momentarily. After linking up at Khalde...
...side were the Druze and the Shi'ite Muslim forces, backed and armed by the Syrians. On the other were the Lebanese Army and, unfortunately, the Malines, whose role was now being described by the Reagan Administration as upholding the government of President Amin Gemayel. Increasingly, the U.S. forces fought back as they came under attack, but they were woefully unprepared for the realities of Lebanon, as demonstrated by the Shi'ite terrorist bombing of last Oct. 23, which took the lives of 241 Marines...
...drove a wedge between him and the Lebanese Muslims, who wanted no part of a pact with Israel. Nonetheless, Gemayel had one final chance. Last November he managed to assemble at Geneva the leaders of the principal Lebanese factions. The meeting went surprisingly well, but the Muslims and the Druze insisted that before anything else could be done, Gemayel must abrogate his agreement with Israel. So he went off to Washington to seek support from the Reagan Administration. The agreement was not really of any use to anybody, but the Israelis treasured it as their only souvenir of a purposeless...