Word: militia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...weeks, the struggle raged over control of the crucial Shatt al Arab waterway. After pummeling the ancient port city of Khorramshahr, the Iraqis laid siege to the Iranian refinery center of Abadan. The Iraqi advance was slowed by the fierce resistance of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, an Islamic militia passionately supportive of the ideals and fulminations of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Meanwhile, the surprisingly effective Iranian air force hit back at the Iraqis with strafing missions and bombing attacks on at least four cities, including targets on the outskirts of Baghdad. The claims of triumph on both sides seemed equally inflated...
...mobile, defensive war, in which regular army units were backed by volunteer groups armed with rifles, Molotov cocktails and grenades. These ad hoc "people's forces" were effective in slowing the Iraqi advance. A key element in the Iranian defense was the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the civil militia, who made up in tenacity and fanaticism what they lacked in military discipline...
...midweek 47,000 reservists had reported for duty in response to President Banisadr's call-up of the class of 1977-78. In cars and pickup trucks and on motorbikes, thousands of small armed militia groups "headed toward the front. Civilians organized convoys of food, clothing, medicine and fuel. As each newly formed battalion set off, townspeople showered it with flowers and made it pass under a copy of the Holy Koran -a Persian tradition aimed at exorcising evil. With stoic fatalism the young bride of a soldier who had just left for the fighting remarked: "Life...
...Northern Ireland: the mostly Protestant Ulster police, or those suspected of affiliation with them, have become more prominent targets for the I.R.A. than the British troops. Since 1969, when the current wave of troubles began, 334 British soldiers have been killed, vs. 243 members of local police or militia. But lately the ratio has been changing: of 61 people to die violently so far this year, only seven were British army regulars, while 15 were locally recruited police or members of the Ulster Defense Regiment U.D.R.). One reason: the growing policy of "Ulsterization" of peace-keeping chores in Northern Ireland...
...night of April 18th, 1775. Silently they crept over the causeway (now. Gore St.). Their movement would have gone unnoticed save for one British regular who took sick and found his way to a house near the point. From there, the alarm was given, explaining why the Cambridge militia were among the first aroused...