Word: khaddam
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...Reagan Administration's dreams of helping President Amin Gemayel rebuild his country. The leaders of Lebanon's Muslim and Christian factions met in Lausanne, Switzerland, for a round of reconciliation talks last week, but the only power broker on the premises was Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam. In fact, the Lebanese representatives wryly referred to Khaddam as "the high commissioner," an allusion to the French official who ran Lebanon under a League of Nations mandate before the country gained independence...
...only to discuss the matter with his aides. Syrian officials had been debating the merits of releasing Goodman almost from the day he was shot down, and Jackson's plea tipped the balance. Jackson was given the good news the next day by Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam. Ambassador Robert Paganelli, who was not invited to Jackson's briefing, was informed moments later. Meanwhile, Goodman was driven from his Damascus military jail to the U.S. embassy. After putting on a tie and brown tweed jacket supplied by Jackson, he had a celebratory lunch at the Damascus-Sheraton...
Even as the big guns of the New Jersey were firing last week, U.S. Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld was in Damascus conferring with Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam. Little was accomplished, but the fact that the session was held at all was an achievement of sorts. In the streets of the capital, 50,000 Syrians rallied to praise President Hafez Assad and to demonstrate against U.S. mili military power...
...Shamir have told reporters that a five-man council was making decisions, but hard facts are an elusive commodity in Damascus. Among the men reported to be on the committee are Rifaat Assad, Hafez's younger brother and the tough-hearted head of internal security, Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam and Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas. Even if Assad should die or become seriously incapacitated, sparking a ferocious power struggle, U.S. officials expect little change in Syrian policy once a successor emerges. "Damascus would be no less hostile to Israel and the U.S. and no less militarily dependent on the Soviet...
Then things started to sour. Syrian intervention in the Lebanese civil war proved immensely unpopular at home and triggered a wave of car bombs and assassination attempts against government officials, including three attacks on Foreign Minister Khaddam. Assad faced his most serious challenge from the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic group rabidly opposed to Damascus' secular policies. In June 1979 the group gunned down more than 60 cadets, mostly Alawites, at the Aleppo military academy. The next spring, a general strike in northern Syria was stopped only after 12,000 troops killed hundreds and arrested thousands...