Word: factionalism
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...reclaiming power. King Zahir Shah, who the U.S. hopes will return from exile in Rome and lead a democratic renaissance, was overthrown in 1973 by his cousin, Mohammed Daoud, who was himself overthrown by a communist military coup in 1978. But as infighting among two rival communist factions became more violent and chaotic, the Soviets invaded in 1979 and installed their preferred faction. That united a plethora of mujahedeen groups, who, with the backing of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. - and, separately, Iran - managed to drive out the Soviets and destroy the regime they left behind...
...deaths of Ze'evi and Zibri illustrate how the intifadeh has taken those who were on the fringes of political credibility and made them symbols capable of rallying entire populations. Before the Aqsa intifadeh, Zibri's P.F.L.P., a faction of Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, was a powerless joke in the West Bank, a has-been group that clung to its Marxist ideology and its naysaying on peace with Israel. Ze'evi was a marginal right-wing extremist who often advocated the "voluntary transfer" of Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In death, both have become...
...Arabs and Israelis to sit down and talk. Previous loya jirgas?the first was in 1709, the latest in 1964?have produced good results. But cracks are already showing in the latest venture. The leadership of the Northern Alliance is committed to it, but the group's various factions are not of one mind. "It's just a ragbag of different forces," a senior British official says of the alliance. He says its Uzbek faction rejects the group's new military commander, General Mohammed Fahim, successor to the charismatic Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated Sept. 9. The Uzbeks...
...military arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which killed Zeevi in retaliation for the assassination of its own leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, by Israel last August. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has also arrested scores of PFLP militants, drawing fierce criticism from the leftist faction as well as from Hamas - and among ordinary Palestinians...
...that the PFLP will mind. The left-wing faction had traditionally opposed the Oslo peace process, and like many of Arafat's own rank and file they reject his current cease-fire and renewed negotiations with Israel. Unlike Islamic Jihad and Hamas who may be inclined right now to act in sympathy with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, the PFLP is a secular leftist group traditionally aligned with Syria. The killing of their leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, by an Israeli missile fired into his office in August had sparked widespread Palestinian fury and vows of vengeance. And by provoking...