Word: militiaization
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During twelve years of civil war, foreign correspondents came to rely on the Commodore Hotel in West Beirut as a respite from the turmoil around them. Feuding militia leaders held press conferences there, and a string of hopeful peace envoys were among its guests. The Commodore's lively bar was renowned throughout the Middle East as a meeting place for those passing through Beirut. It was also the home of a parrot whose uncannily accurate imitation of an incoming artillery shell fooled more than a few newly arrived reporters. While cross fire occasionally damaged the aging seven-story edifice...
Last week the Commodore's luck ran out. The hotel became a killing ground in the bitter, fierce struggle between two Syrian-backed groups, the Shi'ite Amal militia and a leftist coalition of Druze militiamen and fighters of the pro-Soviet Lebanese Communist Party. At midweek, after an all-night battle, the Druze, lobbing grenades and delivering armor-piercing rockets, stormed the hotel and drove the Shi'ites out. The floors and walls of the lobby were stained with blood, and gaping holes made by rockets scarred its walls. By the time the last guests and employees had fled...
...proposed a wide-ranging plan. Offering to negotiate with the seven terrorist factions that have taken captives, Berri said he would seek freedom for all 24 foreign hostages kidnaped during the past two years. Doubts were immediately raised, however, about Berri's chances of success. His Syrian-backed Amal militia is a bitter rival of the Iran-supported Shi'ite fundamentalist groups that are believed to hold most of the hostages...
...inhabitants of two Beirut refugee camps confronted a new threat: starvation. The food shortage was the result of a long and bloody siege of Burj el-Barajneh and Shatila, Palestinian settlements on the southern edge of the city. Since October, the camps have been under attack by the Amal militia, a Syrian-backed Shi'ite Muslim group...
...unsuccessful attempts were made to break the blockade. In the first, four occupants of a truck loaded with flour were killed when they tried to drive the vehicle into Burj el-Barajneh and were blasted with Amal rockets. Militia officials claimed that the truck was also carrying ammunition for the P.L.O. Then on Friday, after the Amal had agreed to a cease-fire, an Iranian envoy riding in a small U.N. convoy of trucks and an ambulance was killed when the vehicles were halted by rocket and machine-gun fire just outside the camp's main gate. Finally...