Word: frontier
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...that a "chapter has closed" in Iran's history with the fall and death of the Shah, and emphasized that the U.S. "recognize(s) the reality of the Iranian Revolution." But by that time, the hostage issue had receded behind the shadow of the confrontation across the Iraq-Iran frontier...
...barren hills near the Iraqi border town of Khanaqin quaked with the thump of artillery fire last week. While Iraqi MiGs and Iranian Phantoms dueled in the skies overhead, tanks were battling on the ground, yet again, over a patch of disputed frontier. Iraq and Iran have been skirmishing along their border for nearly two years, ever since the downfall of the late Shah. The fighting did not spread, but it underlined afresh the edgy, mercurial state of the Persian Gulf region, repository and supplier of so much of the world...
East Germany keeps its citizens well back from the fence. Those permitted to live within three miles of the frontier must have special permits. These are mostly farmers, who work their fields from one hour after sunrise to one hour before sunset, usually under armed guard and sometimes with other guards guarding the guards to discourage escape attempts...
There is no doubt why the fence is there. East Germany claims the fortified frontier is purely defensive, but many watchtowers do not even afford a view of West Germany. All, however, offer a clear field of fire back to the east. Fortifications are being refined and modernized continually. According to Western estimates, the East Germans have invested well over $7 billion in building and maintaining the barrier. "They now have third-generation equipment in place," says Major Karl Ball, deputy commander of the Bundesgrenzschutz, West Germany's border police, in the central sector. "It has always been difficult...
...sure that we don't violate that line on patrol, not with a single footprint, tire track or rotor blade." Crow assigns daily helicopter patrols to fly "the trace," as the border is known, always with specially trained pilots. Ground patrols operate within a few feet of the frontier, occasionally augmented by new M-60A3 tanks, says Crow, "to remind the other side that we have a wartime capability here as well...