Word: kuwaiti
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...relations with the Arab world were further complicated last week when, much to the surprise and embarrassment of the White House, the Senate voted to deny Kuwait sophisticated Maverick air-to-surface missiles just days before the Kuwaiti Prime Minister, Crown Prince Saad al-Abdullah al-Sabah, arrived in Washington. Kuwait would like to buy $l.9 billion worth of arms, including 40 F-18 jet fighters, of which the Mavericks are considered an essential feature...
...came during a week in which Iran also suffered a major military setback in its 7 1/2-year war of attrition with Iraq: Iranian troops were driven from the strategic Fao Peninsula by a concerted Iraqi offensive. Meanwhile a third drama involving the gulf, the 15-day hijacking of a Kuwaiti jetliner by suspected pro-Iranian Islamic extremists, ended anticlimactically in Algeria with the release of 31 hostages and the escape of their captors...
...beginning of the end of the Kuwaiti hijacking came shortly before 4 a.m. last Wednesday with a totally unexpected message from the Boeing 747. "We declare to the Muslim people and to all people who seek freedom," said a voice over the cockpit radio, "that today, the third day of Ramadan, we will end the Kuwaiti airplane operation...
Despite their ordeal, all the hostages were found to be sufficiently fit to travel home to Kuwait. Kuwaiti officials privately claimed that the freeing of the captives was a vindication of their country's principled refusal to accede to the hijackers' chief demand, the release of 17 pro-Iranian terrorists convicted of taking part in attacks on the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983. But the hijackers' safe passage out of Algeria not only prevents them from being brought to justice for killing two passengers in Larnaca but also frees them to commit terror anew...
...heighten the pressure, the hijackers put several hostages on the radio to plead for a resolution of the crisis. One, who identified himself as Mohammed Ahmed al-Hajemi, declared in a strained voice, "I greet my family, and I ask the Kuwaiti authorities to free the prisoners. Otherwise the kidnapers will kill us." Throughout, the skyjackers defended their actions. "We are men of principle, not highway bandits," one asserted. "We would have preferred not to use such methods, but we have no choice. We repeat our demand for the liberation of our 17 brothers, and we will not go back...