Word: jordanian
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...long operated freely within his country's borders. Only last month, in a continuing display of disunity, Syria and Iraq closed their borders with Jordan in protest against Hussein's routing of the guerrillas; two weeks ago, Libya's impetuous young strongman, Muammar Gaddafi, urged the Jordanian army to overthrow its King...
...dawn broke along a 35-mile stretch of the Jordan River and its tributary the Yarmuk last week, Israeli soldiers gaped in disbelief. In ones and twos or even in whole squads, scores of bedraggled Arabs broke from the concealment of reed beds on the Jordanian banks and splashed across the 30-yard-wide, green-flecked rivers with white undershirts tied to their rifles in a sign of surrender. Many also held up green I.D. cards certifying them as fedayeen, the Palestinian "men of sacrifice" who are sworn to destroy Israel...
...himself Caliph. Ever since, Arabs have described self-aggrandizement in the guise of vengeance as "waving the shirt of Othman." As Hussein's neighbors leaped to the guerrillas' defense last week with words-but little else-that is what they seemed to be doing. Iraq expelled the Jordanian ambassador and demanded Jordan's ouster from the Arab League. Egypt's Anwar Sadat in effect called Hussein a liar, while a spokesman in Cairo said that the events were "a black mark on the forehead of the Jordanian government." No government, however, did anything tangible to help...
Hussein has already withstood considerably more than mere words. Last September, when the guerrillas were openly defying Hussein, the King's army ran them out of Amman in a fierce battle. Ever since, he and Jordanian Premier Wasfi Tal have been planning a final showdown with the guerrillas, holed up at bases near 'Ajlun and Jerash in the hills of northwest Jordan...
Until last week the guerrillas had been largely silent since they were badly mauled last September by the Jordanian army. King Hussein seems determined to prove that he has the once-ungovernable commandos completely under control; last week his government hanged a guerrilla for committing sabotage at a phosphate plant outside Amman. Plagued by disunity and close to despair, the fedayeen might have launched last week's attacks, as Beirut's Daily Star observed, to prove that they "may be down but they...