Word: lebanonization
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...situation for Americans in Lebanon was worsening in 1986, but Joseph Cicippio thought his low-profile position as acting comptroller of the American University of Beirut made him an unlikely target for terrorists. He was further protected, he believed, by his marriage to a Lebanese woman and his conversion to Islam in 1985. Nonetheless, as he left his campus apartment on Sept. 12, the Norristown, Pa., native was ambushed by four gunmen of the Shi'ite Revolutionary Justice Organization, pistol-whipped and loaded into the trunk of a car. He was the second American to be abducted in Lebanon that...
...hanging man was almost certainly U.S. Marine Lieut. Colonel William Higgins, 44, who was kidnaped last year while serving as head of an observer team attached to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon. His captors claimed they killed him in retaliation for Israel's seizure of Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid, a presumed leader of Shi'ite Hizballah terrorists, during a raid into southern Lebanon. U.S. officials now believe, however, that Higgins had been dead for some time, then used for his kidnapers' macabre display. No matter which terrible theory turns out to be true, the image of Higgins' body...
...effect, Cicippio's suspended sentence left his loved ones -- and the U.S. -- suspended as well. Behind Cicippio is a tattered line of 14 other Western hostages, eight of them Americans, still believed to be held in Lebanon. Other Americans continue to live and work in that shattered country despite official warnings issued by Washington in January 1987 that in effect they are on their own. So long as the U.S. and its citizens venture forth freely in the world, they will be vulnerable to extortion by kidnapers. Trying to come to terms with that implacable fact, Ronald Reagan stumbled...
...latest crisis was sparked by events in Lebanon that dramatized the difference between the Israeli and American responses to hostage taking. On July 28, two dozen Israeli commandos staged a daring raid into the southern Lebanese village of Jibchit. Their goal was to seize Obeid, 32, whom the Israelis identify as a spiritual and military leader of the Shi'ite fundamentalist Hizballah (Party of God), a group with close ties to Iran that is holding most of the Western hostages. The Israelis say they wanted Obeid as a bargaining chip to gain release of three Israeli military men taken prisoner...
Bush was also considering a military response. About three dozen U.S. warships were dispatched toward Lebanon and Iran. Iran was notified that as the paymaster of the Hizballah, it would be held responsible if any American hostages were harmed. Through a variety of conflicting leaks, the Administration let it be known that if Cicippio was killed, the President was prepared to order an air strike against suspected terrorist bases...