Word: hafez
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...problems, Iran under the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini seems increasingly confident and active. Earlier this month Tehran persuaded its partners in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to limit oil production and thus push up the price. Last week it received two high-level envoys from Syrian President Hafez Assad, the most influential power broker in the Arab world, who called the alliance between the two countries "invulnerable." Now Iran is negotiating with France for the return of $1 billion in Iranian funds that were frozen by Paris after the Ayatullah came to power...
Still another influence may have been that of Syrian President Hafez Assad, who is believed anxious to improve his relations with the U.S. and to counteract his country's reputation as a sponsor of terrorism. Assad has recently renewed his efforts to gain the release of the Western hostages. A month ago, the Syrian leader told a visiting California Congressman that Syria expected to have "some good news very soon." One view, dismissed by the Administration, is that Assad not only secured Jenco's release but timed it to coincide with Vice President Bush's trip to the region...
...related deaths since January. They underlined yet again the bloody logic of Beirut's seemingly senseless cycle of sectarian vendettas. No groups claimed responsibility for the bombings, but Christian leaders promptly blamed the East Beirut atrocity on Muslims, charging that they were acting for the regime of Syrian President Hafez Assad. Across town in his West Beirut headquarters, Nabih Berri, the chief of the predominantly Shi'ite Amal militia, ascribed the Barbir bombing to Christian militiamen bent on revenge. More radical Shi'ites claimed that the Christian perpetrators were acting as "lackeys of Israel...
Apparently under pressure from Syrian President Hafez Assad, Jihad last year freed another American, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, but claimed that William Buckley, a U.S. diplomat, had been killed to avenge an Israeli air raid on Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunisia. Buckley's death remains unconfirmed. In April another American captive, Librarian Peter Kilburn, and two Britons were killed in retaliation for the U.S. air attack on Libya. That leaves three American hostages: Anderson, 38, an Associated Press correspondent; David Jacobsen, 55, director of the American University Hospital in Beirut; and Thomas Sutherland, 55, the university's acting dean...
...Israel." So said Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres last week, for the moment allaying fears that Israel might be on the verge of making a pre- emptive strike against its strongest Arab neighbor. Almost simultaneously, Syria's Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam declared that the Damascus government of President Hafez Assad "is not seeking aggression," though he added that Syria would "respond with all the potential it possesses" if attacked. Those statements were intended to put to rest, at least temporarily, a flurry of war talk that has rocked the region for the past fortnight. But they hardly resolved...