Word: gunmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Testrake interview had a side effect that the militiamen had not counted on: it stirred up the crowd of foreign journalists on hand. They pressed harder for advantage and constantly confronted the rifle barrels of the angry gunmen. The most remarkable case was that of a Lebanese Shi'ite driver working for Newsweek. The driver rode onto the tarmac in a food van and, pretending to be a relative of one of the hijackers, proceeded to the steps of the plane. "Trick! Journalist!" a gunman screamed as he spotted the man's camera. As the driver fled from the scene...
...More often a confederate, such as a member of an airline ground crew or a maintenance worker at an airport, plants the gun either on the plane or somewhere in the terminal beyond the screening machines. The wall of security does seem to have deterred many of the lone gunmen who so often diverted flights to Cuba in the 1970s; the number of hijackings around the world has steadily decreased, from 91 in 1969 to 17 last year. Still, the precautions have not yet been able to thwart highly organized, professional terrorists like those who found...
Acting as a kind of terrorist talk-show host was Ali Hamdan, a well-groomed representative of the Lebanese Amal, the mainstream Shi'ite faction that had in effect hijacked the hostages from their original hijackers, the two brutal gunmen who had seized TWA's Flight 847 and murdered Navy Diver Robert Stethem. The only glitch in this presentation occurred when reporters and cameramen got into a shoving match as they jockeyed for position. Quickly, the Shi'ite guards hustled their prizes from the crowded room in the Beirut airport, waving pistols and cuffing a few reporters for good measure...
...East Beirut, where a single Christian militia maintains a surprising degree of control, life seems relatively calm. But in Muslim-controlled West Beirut -- across the barricaded "green line," a swath of no-man's-land that divides the city between east and west -- gunmen from various Shi'ite and Sunni factions rule the streets. Neighborhoods in this area, where the American hostages are presumably being held, often change hands from week to week in the endless fighting among factions...
...daylight hours, the cratered, potholed streets are crowded. Beirutis whose cars have not been stolen drive around the city with an ear cocked for bursts of gunfire, signs that militiamen are approaching in their Jeeps and battered cars. Generally the gunmen shoot their automatic weapons into the air as they career around a corner, warning other drivers to clear a lane. But they can get ornery if anyone blocks their way. Many a hesitant motorist has had his tires shot out from under...