Word: ite
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...emotions that has been part of the hostage dilemma for years, the new development was tantalizing. Iran's President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose nation badly needs Western technology to rebuild its war-shattered economy, has been nodding his approval for the hostages' release, a signal to the Shi'ite Muslim groups that hold them, most of which are pro-Iranian. With its Soviet sponsor winding down its support, Syria, which has influence with the IJLP, has also been looking for ways to improve relations with the West...
...further progress will be complicated by the fact that the American ! hostages are held by several Shi'ite factions, each with its own sponsors and agendas. Even if Iran and Syria are sincere in their desire to speed the release of the hostages, there are serious questions about how much influence either now has among Lebanon's tangled factions of militant Shi'ite Muslims...
...securing the hostages' freedom. It was no accident that President Bush sent Syrian President Hafez Assad a warm congratulatory message on the 44th anniversary of Syrian independence last week. Syria's influence over Hizballah has been partly limited by the fact that Damascus is a supporter of the Shi'ite Amal, a secular Muslim group that continues to fight fierce battles with the fundamentalist Hizballah. But Hussein Musawi, leader of a pro-Syrian faction within Hizballah, is now believed to have taken control of the American hostages held by the IJLP...
Battled over for centuries by Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Russians and Persians, Azerbaijan was divided by treaties in 1813 and 1828. Today about 6.7 million ethnic Azerbaijanis, who share a Turkic language and the Shi'ite Muslim religion, live on the Soviet side of the line and about 4 million in the adjoining Iranian province of Azerbaijan. Stalin, ever expansionist, coveted that part of Iran and moved troops into it during World War II. Before Western pressure forced him to withdraw, he encouraged Azerbaijani nationalism and rigged an "autonomous" local government in hopes the province would break away from Iran...
Although the P.L.O. may profit from the perception that it rejects Abu Nidal's movement, terrorism's tentacles are spreading. Alliances are said to be forming in Lebanon between followers of the F.R.C. and members of the pro- Iranian Shi'ite Hizballah. "I spend more time worrying about the fractionalization of terrorism than I do about the disintegration of ((Abu Nidal's)) organization," says a Western diplomat in Cairo. "Smaller groups are harder to find...