Word: ite
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...days of captivity? Why now, after nearly a year of uneasy silence, punctuated by occasional threats about the fate of the remaining 12 Western hostages? And who orchestrated McCarthy's release: Iran? Syria? His captors? As ever, there was a stated trade-off. Islamic Jihad, a radical Shi'ite cell that operates beneath the larger umbrella of the pro-Iranian Hizballah, armed McCarthy with a sealed letter addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar. It is believed to call for the release of 300 Shi'ites from southern Lebanon and the release of 75 more prisoners held...
...East will take place this fall. According to the byzantine theory offered by some Middle East experts, McCarthy's discharge conveniently pre-empted the favorable publicity Israel has received in recent weeks for its newfound willingness to attend a peace conference. If Israel now refuses to free the Shi'ite prisoners, it will be charged once again with intransigence. If Israel complies, the prisoners are released, and Syria, appearing to have delivered the hostages to the West, goes to the negotiating table with a strengthened hand. The role of the U.N. is also enhanced, a fact that will no doubt...
...immediate, angry reaction in the Arab world highlighted the deep rifts that exist among kidnapping clans inside Lebanon. Hours before Leyraud disappeared, Lebanon's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, renewed his persistent calls for a freeing of all foreign hostages. In successive interviews with British and American journalists, Fadlallah insisted that "the ploys of hostage dealing have been exhausted" and that even Iranian hard-liners "desire an end to the whole problem...
There is at least one other wild card: the future of the Lebanese brothers Mohammed and Abbas Hammadi. The two members of a prominent Shi'ite family associated with Hizballah are imprisoned in Germany -- Mohammed for his part in the 1985 TWA hijacking, Abbas for the abduction of two German businessmen. Some Lebanese and Syrian officials believe that Leyraud's seizure was an attempt by a third Hammadi to secure the release of his brothers. Western intelligence officials say the Hammadi family has warned the leadership of Hizballah that it will release none of its hostages until the Hammadi brothers...
...Associated Press correspondent Anderson, who has been held since March 1985, longer than any other Westerner, it has been at least as bad. Some of the hostages freed earlier have reported that Anderson's first cell was a cramped room in Beirut's Shi'ite slums where he lay chained and blindfolded. Later he and four others were moved to a basement dungeon that was partitioned into cubicles. The guards beat them and repeatedly threatened to kill them. , Food was a meager ration of bread, tea and cheese...