Word: hamas
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...light blue eyes and dimpled chin, Syrian Strongman Amin Hafez, 42, conveys so genial a manner that it is hard to believe he is called the Butcher of Damascus. Last week he once again lived up to that name. Syria was a charnel house. In the midland city of Hama, mothers wailed over the bodies of dead sons, the famed Sultan Mosque lay in ruins, and the corpse of one rebel leader, riddled with 50 bullets, was contemptuously dumped by soldiers from an open jeep onto the sidewalk. The bloody-handed Baath (Renaissance) Party was again engaged in its favorite...
...unrest spread, a 15-year-old schoolboy in a classroom in Hama (pop. 110,000) erased the Baathist slogan, "One Single Arab Nation with an Immortal Mission," and wrote instead, "The Atheist Baath Is Against God!" The boy was sentenced to a year's hard labor, and his classmates went on strike. The sheiks and mullahs of Hama's 65 mosques denounced Baathist oppression, and surging Moslem mobs filled the streets. The police opened fire and the battle of Hama began...
...rooftops and minarets. Reinforcements were rushed in. Strongman Hafez left his huge marble office in Damascus with its yard-long model of a Russian T-54 tank and flew to the scene. His ultimatum: Unless the rebels surrendered their arms and handed over 19 suspected rebel leaders-mostly from Hama's big landowning families-the army would attack with overwhelming force. Said Hafez: "You have until dawn to decide...
...violence in the streets grew worse, the Baath leaders faced the prospect of destroying Arab unity and lowering the prestige of their party. Last week harassed, mournful Premier Bitar finally gave in and resigned to be replaced by a compromise candidate, Dr. Sami Jundi, 40, a dentist from Hama who was previously Minister of Guidance and Culture. There was some possibility that the new Premier might be acceptable to both sides: to the Baathists because Jundi was once a party member and had stood by the government; to the Nasserites because he has been a longtime admirer of Egypt...
Then the soldiers began squabbling among themselves: the garrison at Aleppo briefly mutinied, demanding Syria's reunion with Nasser's Egypt; pro-Nasser mobs in Horns, Hama and Aleppo killed a score of army men; a handful of officers accused of political ambitions were shipped off to exile abroad. The army commander in chief. General Abdel Karim Zahreddin, tried vainly to put together a "government of technicians...