Word: hama
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Muslim Brotherhood in Hama stages a fierce revolt...
What has happened in Hama has happened, and it is all over." With that terse declaration, Syria's President Hafez Assad last week acknowledged for the first time that his country's fifth largest city had been racked by fierce revolt in recent weeks. Assad insisted that life in Hama was back to normal, but the three-week rebellion is believed to have damaged much of the city's old quarter and killed more than 1,000 people. A Western diplomat who was able to get to the edges of Hama described destruction on the outskirts...
...uprising was the most serious challenge yet to the eleven-year-old regime of Assad and his ruling Baath Party. The fighting apparently began when security forces searched throughout Hama to uncover hideouts of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic organization violently opposed to Assad's secularist policies. Members of the Brotherhood reacted by attacking the homes of Baath Party officials and the police station. Describing the incident over Damascus Radio, Baath officials said the rebels, "driven like mad dogs by their black hatred, pounced on our comrades while sleeping in their homes and killed whomever they could...
...military, most recently in January, when some 150 officers in elite air force and armored units were arrested on charges of plotting a coup. Still, Western diplomats in the Middle East believe that Assad remains in command. There were no signs last week that the trouble in Hama was spreading elsewhere...