Word: druzes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Gemayel's troops had lost control of West Beirut to the Shi'ite and Druze militias in a vicious battle the week before, and the rout south of the city left his government controlling little more than Christian East Beirut. The Muslims were expected to make their next major thrust at Suq al Gharb in the mountains east of Beirut, where the Lebanese Army held a strategic position overlooking the presidential palace at Baabda, just outside the capital. Fighting did break out around Suq al Gharb and along the "green line" separating West and East Beirut...
Moreover, the Druze victory at Khalde broke all connections between the remnants of the Lebanese Army and the Marines at Beirut airport. The Marines' encampment now is ringed north, east and south by Muslim militiamen; on the west the Marines can reach the Mediterranean only by way of a narrow strip of coastal highway between Druze and Amal checkpoints...
...Muslims last week watched the Marines load equipment onto ships and made no attempt to interfere. "We know they are leaving and we'll let them go quietly," said Abu Khalid, a Druze commander. But in the swirl of Lebanon's sectarian violence, the Marines were dangerously exposed. Even though the Druze and Amal leadership granted them safe passage, there remained the risk that extremists of some stripe would try to interfere with the withdrawal, either out of revenge or for political purposes of their own. No matter how orderly the pullout, it now seemed all but impossible...
Syria rejected the plan, and some of Gemayel's Lebanese enemies dismissed it as too little, too late. In Damascus, Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt insisted that Gemayel must not only resign but be put on trial for "crimes against the Lebanese people." On the other hand, Syria, which is helping to arm Gemayel's foes, is believed amenable to letting the President stay on, and it invited a revised plan which the Saudis proposed and conveyed to Beirut. If Gemayel does cling to office, it may be as the figurehead leader of a drastically reshaped government heavily influenced...
...Marines hunkered down at the airport. Weinberger's aides denied the stories, but the shelling was in fact scaled down. The New Jersey's guns were silent last week, though the U.S. destroyer Claude V. Ricketts did fire several dozen rounds of 5-in. shells at Druze positions...