Word: fatah
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Crack Down. Whether the Lebanese or the Al-Fatah guerrillas provoked the fighting is unclear. Certainly, the army has long been edgy. Last December, in retaliation for guerrilla actions elsewhere, Israeli commandos carried out a raid on Beirut airport. Lebanon's generals, humiliated that the nation lost 13 commercial airplanes without being able to strike back, were chafing to crack down on the guerrillas, who were moving across the countryside pretty much at will...
...Fatah has also been spoiling for a fight for months. Last spring, army attempts to control the commandos led to street demonstrations in which 17 died. The riots caused the downfall of the government of Rashid Karami, who resigned to avoid a confrontation that would hurt Lebanon, but stayed on as caretaker Premier. After the riots, the guerrillas tacitly agreed to operate only along Lebanon's border with Israel and to keep away from civilian settlements against which the Israelis could retaliate. Despite the agreement, they have tripled their forces to about...
...days later, Al-Fatah avenged what its radio station called "a brutal massacre." Striking across the Syrian border in a maneuver that could not have been conducted without approval from the far-left regime in Damascus, commandos hit the Lebanese border towns of Masnaa, Arida and Biqeiha. Overpowering police and customs posts, the guerrillas took 24 captives. They were later set free, but only after Al-Fatah bragged that their capture was "full evidence of the revolution's ability to take any measures it considers appropriate for self-defense." Al-Fatah, in other words, would move when and where...
...Yemen broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S. Washington said that it planned to take no retaliatory action. Jordan's King Hussein, who has toyed with the idea of curbing the guerrillas himself, tried to steer a middle course. He sent no protest to Helou, but told Al-Fatah Leader Yasser Arafat: "It is a shame that a single drop of Arab blood be shed by an Arab hand." In Baghdad, 250,000 Iraqis demonstrated against Lebanon, as did mobs in Libya...
...disgusted with the news of the attacks on the Arabs. I'm not overlooking the raids of Al-Fatah, made across the Israeli border, but I admire them for at least putting up a struggle to keep their country intact...