Word: gemayels
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...Syrian militias clashed in the northern port of Tripoli last week, while Druze and Christian fighters exchanged fire in the Chouf Mountains southeast of Bei rut. The Druze, who are supported by Syria, have organized a coalition with the deliberate aim of under mining the government of President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Christian. Earlier this month, government newspapers in Syria bluntly called for Gemayel's resignation. Meanwhile, in an attempt to gain greater leverage over the Palestine Liberation Organization, Assad shored up a rebellion against Leader Yasser Arafat, whom he unceremoniously ejected from Syria last June...
...been the scene of fighting for ten months as Druze and Christian militiamen battled for control of the strategic region, this time the target was different and the implications for Lebanon's future far graver. The attack was the first salvo in a new challenge to President Amin Gemayel's fragile government...
...larger share of power in Lebanon's political patchwork, by the Druze, a small and esoteric sect with roots in Islam. Last month Walid Jumblatt, Druze chieftain and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, helped organize a National Salvation Front with the deliberate aim of opposing Gemayel. The front struck an alliance with Syria and demanded that Gemayel renounce the May 17 agreement according to which Israel would withdraw its troops if Lebanon agreed to security and political guarantees. It has also insisted that the 1943 National Pact, which gives Maronite Christians the presidency and other dominant positions...
Alarmed by the violence, President Gemayel dispatched a three-man Cabinet delegation to the Chouf to negotiate an end to the fighting. It included a Druze, a Shi'ite Muslim and a Maronite. The three ministers met with Sheik Muhammad Abu Shaqra, spiritual leader of the Druze community, and then set off, with their armed escort, on the return trip to Beirut. They were soon intercepted by Druze gunmen and taken to Jumblatt's home in the town of Mukhtara. Jumblatt was not there, and it was unclear whether he even knew of the abductions. Abu Shaqra sped...
Next day the ministers were released and returned safely to Beirut, where they relayed a list of ten demands from the Druze to Gemayel. The list included a call for the resignation of Prime Minister Chafik al Wazzan and his Cabinet. Wazzan immediately restated the government's intention to send the army into any areas vacated by foreign troops, which could lead to a confrontation with the Druze when the Israelis conduct their withdrawal from the Chouf some time before October. But after an emergency meeting of Christian and Muslim leaders, Information Minister Roger Shikhani announced that some...