Word: iranian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...elite Special Forces commandos, crouched behind barricades ringing the Shi'ite Muslim slums. Since May 6, fierce battles between rival militias had raged through the streets and alleys, causing many of the area's 250,000 residents to flee. In bloody hand-to-hand combat, the fanatical, pro- Iranian Hizballah had driven the more moderate, Syrian-backed Amal out of its positions and seized control of some 90% of the district...
...killing ground that is Beirut, where savage death has become commonplace, the brawls between this faction and that stopped making headline news long ago. But last week's clashes between the pro-Iranian Hizballah and its more moderate Shi'ite rival, the pro-Syrian Amal, were horrific even by Lebanese standards. In six days of warfare, Hizballah militiamen drove Amal fighters out of large portions of Beirut's southern suburbs. Using tanks, mortars, rockets and artillery, the combatants blasted buildings to rubble and sent civilians scurrying for refuge carrying their belongings on their backs. Snipers fired at anything that moved...
...West Beirut in early 1987. The hostilities left the surprisingly strong Hizballah fighters in control of 70% of the disputed territory, a 16-sq.-mi. district of crowded slums that is home to 250,000 Shi'ites. Fighting was suspended after telephone consultations between Syrian President Hafez Assad and Iranian President Ali Khamenei. But the next day, the fragile alliance between Damascus and Tehran was taxed as Hizballah fighters broke the truce, drawing Syrian troops into the conflict...
...They weren't human or inhuman. They were nonhuman." That was how French Journalist Jean-Paul Kauffmann, quoting fellow hostage Michel Seurat, , described the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad terrorists who held him hostage for three years. The wrenching account of his kidnaping, captivity and release appeared last week in L'Evenement du Jeudi, the French newsmagazine Kauffmann worked for when he and French Researcher Seurat were abducted...
Despite their ordeal, all the hostages were found to be sufficiently fit to travel home to Kuwait. Kuwaiti officials privately claimed that the freeing of the captives was a vindication of their country's principled refusal to accede to the hijackers' chief demand, the release of 17 pro-Iranian terrorists convicted of taking part in attacks on the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983. But the hijackers' safe passage out of Algeria not only prevents them from being brought to justice for killing two passengers in Larnaca but also frees them to commit terror anew...