Word: ites
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fierce power struggle is now under way among the men who run Iran. The mullahs, or Shi'ite holy men, and their nonclerical allies are preparing for the era after the death of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, who is 86 and reportedly ailing. They are battling over such issues as relations with the West and the continuation of the war against Iraq. The major players...
Stung by such signs of opprobrium, Syrian President Hafez Assad evidently embarked on a damage-control campaign by addressing the one issue that could restore some of Syria's image in the West: the 20 foreigners held hostage by Shi'ite extremists in Lebanon. As he has in the past when it served his purposes, notably in the release of TWA passengers hijacked to Beirut in 1985, Assad asserted his authority with the Shi'ite groups and apparently arranged for at least a token hostage release. Waite, whose patient efforts to end the hostage crisis were well known to Syria...
...embassy personnel have been evacuated for security reasons. Waite had ample reason, moreover, for not wanting to spend any more time than necessary in Beirut. Last November he was trapped for several hours in a building there that came under withering cross fire in a street battle between Shi'ite and Druze militiamen...
...Associated Press. The same terrorist group also took William Buckley, political officer of the U.S. embassy, and claims to have killed him, though no body has ever been found. As a price for freeing its captives, Islamic Jihad has demanded the release of 17 members of a largely Shi'ite movement serving prison sentences in Kuwait for, among other offenses, terrorist attacks on the U.S. and French embassies...
...says a British diplomat. "He carries out his missions from a strictly humanitarian point of view." Perhaps most important, Waite is a man known to guard confidences jealously. That trait has earned him the trust of not only Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Runcie but Gaddafi and Shi'ite kidnapers...