Word: kuwait
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Under pressure from Arab diplomats who mediated between the guerrillas and government officials in Paris, the French reluctantly agreed. The Arab diplomats, however, had trouble finding an airline willing to fly the terrorists, and the delay made the gunmen edgy. Trying to ease the tension, Kuwait Ambassador Feisal Saleh Al-Mutawa stood on the curb outside the embassy and through a megaphone pleaded with the terrorists to be reasonable. Explaining the difficulties in arranging for a getaway plane, he shouted: "We couldn't contact the Arab Foreign Ministers in Algiers during the night. They were sleeping." Retorted the gunmen...
...male hostages and Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Naama El Naama (who had voluntarily substituted himself for the women hostages) sped to Le Bourget airport. There the terrorists released El Naama and three employees of the embassy, pushed four others, all Saudis, onto the plane and took off. After flying to Kuwait, where they exchanged the Caravelle for a Kuwait Airways Boeing 707 capable of flying 6,200 miles, they headed for Saudi Arabia. Circling over Riyadh, the Saudi capital, they warned that unless Jordan released Abu Daud they would "throw out the hostages one after the other...
Jordan remained firm in its refusal. When it became apparent that Jordan would not bend, the terrorists once again backed away from their ultimatum and returned to Kuwait...
...Bahrain remains at two destroyers. But, faced with a growing shortage of energy and increased Soviet influence in the gulf area, the U.S. is eager to ensure its Middle East sources of oil. This can be achieved, Washington feels, by arming friendly Iran, as well as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait...
With Soviet acquiescence, if not encouragement, Iraq's left-wing Baathist regime has been generating border trouble with both Iran to the east and Kuwait to the south. Skirmishes between Iraqi and Iranian border guards are common. Russia (along with China) has supplied weapons to guerrillas trying to overthrow Sultan Qabus of Oman. If these rebels were successful, they could bottleneck the gulf by sinking a supertanker in the narrow channel that is now negotiated by 100 ships in the Strait of Hormuz each day. The short-range Soviet aim seems to be to keep the U.S. on edge...