Word: etendards
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...Iranian connection to the Beirut conspiracy is quite plausible. Khomeini still refers to the U.S. as the "great Satan." His government is also furious at the French for selling five Super Etendard fighter-bombers to Iraq, with which Iran is at war. President Sayed Ali Khamene'i and Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi have vowed "retribution" against the U.S. and France. The Iranian newspaper Ettela'at published a cartoon depicting Uncle Sam and French President Mitterrand being crushed to death by a huge hand bearing the legend "Lebanese Muslims...
...that the French contingent was struck at the same time as the Marines. In recent months France has become one of Khomeini's most hated countries, partly because it granted asylum to former Iranian President Bani Sadr and other Iranian dissidents, and partly because it sold five sophisticated Super Etendard jets to Iraq. U.S. intelligence analysts note that the Iranians have pressed the Hizbolla, a radical Shi'ite group in Lebanon, to step up terrorist action against French and American targets. "The thing that clinches it for me is that the French got it too," says a senior intelligence official...
...help aside, Saddam had at least some reason for his confidence. The French government was sending its long-anticipated shipment of five Super Etendard* fighter-bombers to Iraq. Though some confusion remained about whether the jets had actually arrived in Iraq (Baghdad said no, and Paris would not comment), there was little debate about the stakes involved. The influx of new weaponry threatened to escalate the Iran-Iraq war, which in turn could disrupt the supply line of oil from the Persian Gulf...
...been killed; thousands more have been taken prisoners. Now, a new element may enter the grim struggle, possibly altering its scope and stakes: according to French press reports, neither confirmed nor denied by the authorities over the weekend, the French government is sending to Iraq five highly sophisticated Super Etendard fighter-bombers. The planes, flown by French pilots, were said to have taken off from Landivisiau air base in Brittany, bound for southern France or Corsica prior to being handed over to Iraq...
...best method" of solving the crisis. Added Cheysson: "If the Americans want to take the place of the Israelis, that is their responsibility, not ours." Three days later, however, after a barrage of rockets fell on French and Italian troops in Beirut, eight French Super Etendard fighters attacked Druze and Syrian gun positions in the mountains. It was the first time the French had joined the combat, and the first time fighter planes of any multinational-force nation had carried out raids...