Word: kurds
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...with the death, in 1169, of his uncle Shirkuh, a one-eyed, overweight brawler in Nur al-Din's service who had become the de facto leader of Egypt. A seasoned warrior despite his small stature and frailty, Saladin still had a tough hand to play. He was a Kurd (even then a drawback in Middle Eastern politics), and he was from Syria, a Sunni state, trying to rule Egypt, a Shi'ite country. But a masterly 17-year campaign employing diplomacy, the sword and great good fortune made him lord of Egypt, Syria and much of Mesopotamia. The lands...
Bloodshed at Israel's Berlin consulate has highlighted speculation over whether israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, helped catch Abdullah Ocalan. Even if Israel had no hand in Turkey's capture of the rebel Kurd, his followers are now acting on that speculation. The Berlin drama followed reports on German television -- attributed to unnamed "Western intelligence sources" -- that Israeli intelligence may have played a role in snagging Ocalan...
...certainly supported Turkey's efforts to extradite the fugitive and charge him with terrorism -- and Turkey's growing unhappiness about being used as a base for operations against Iraq would give Washington an incentive to help out. While White House spokesman Joe Lockhart on Tuesday welcomed news of the Kurd rebel's capture, he denied the U.S. had any "direct involvement in Ocalan's handover to Turkey...
...story so disturbing. The Turks used to be pretty good about waiting their turn to become involved in an international crisis: every five or six years they'd have a flare-up with the Greeks over Cyprus, and in between they'd manage to content themselves with some routine Kurd oppression...
...glory days didn't last. By 1994, the I.N.C. was collapsing as rival Kurd groups battled over smuggling routes for oil and other goods between Turkey and central Iraq. The infighting led one faction to form a desperate alliance with Saddam in 1996, helping him squeeze the other rebels. The U.S.--stunned by the intrigue--dumped the I.N.C...