Word: factionalized
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...killing ground that is Beirut, where savage death has become commonplace, the brawls between this faction and that stopped making headline news long ago. But last week's clashes between the pro-Iranian Hizballah and its more moderate Shi'ite rival, the pro-Syrian Amal, were horrific even by Lebanese standards. In six days of warfare, Hizballah militiamen drove Amal fighters out of large portions of Beirut's southern suburbs. Using tanks, mortars, rockets and artillery, the combatants blasted buildings to rubble and sent civilians scurrying for refuge carrying their belongings on their backs. Snipers fired at anything that moved...
...intifadeh has given birth to a diffuse and decentralized underground of local popular committees and anonymous coordinators that has survived both the murder of al-Wazir and the arrest of nearly 5,000 Palestinians since December. Many of the local leaders are adherents of one P.L.O. faction or another, but they evidently do not take orders from anyone outside the occupied territories. Rather, decisions made within the occupied territories appear to be approved and ratified by the Palestinian leadership in exile...
...year-old graduate of Israeli jails, Mahmoud has worked since February to stoke the fires of rebellion. His personal allegiance is to Fatah al- Intifadeh, a hard-line, pro-Syrian faction. His first assignment was to transform the informal activism of his home refugee camp into an efficient engine of protest. With seven other Palestinians representing most of the P.L.O. factions and one spokesman for unallied "independents," Mahmoud welded together a series of secret subcommittees charged with various aspects of the rebellion...
...committee is the one for "struggle operations." This supersecret, three- or four-member group decides what specific actions to take, from stone throwing to confrontations with the Israeli army. Once a tactic is approved, word is passed to the camp's or village's popular committee. From there, individual faction leaders mobilize their forces...
...Each faction has its own "striking units," bands of dedicated activists who turn out on command to throw the stones, manufacture the Molotov cocktails, set up the road barricades and harass the army. "It's like a job," says Mahmoud. "This is their daily business." The striking units in his camp work from 10 to 6 every day, he says. "Now we are establishing new units to work at night." At this street level, there is relatively little factional rivalry or outside supervision. Only occasionally does each representative turn to his headquarters for orders. The closest thing to an outside...