Word: militiaization
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When Lebanon's Christians and Muslims are not fighting each other, they are apt to be warring among themselves. Last week, as various Muslim groups skirmished with each other in West Beirut, a far more important fight took place between Christian militia armies in East Beirut and along the coast to the north of the capital. The Phalangists of Pierre Gemayel virtually wiped out the forces of their chief rival, National Liberal Party Leader (and former President) Camille Chamoun, thereby emerging as the dominant Christian military group in Lebanon...
...some observers, the militia leaders appear to have the morals of Mafia dons. The Phalangists' sneak attack was reminiscent of a raid they made in June 1978 on still another Christian faction, the one led by former Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh. In that attack, Franjieh's eldest son Tony, as well as Tony's wife and infant daughter, was slain by Phalangist gunmen. In their assault on the National Liberals last week, the Phalangists seized and burned the home of Dany Chamoun, the son of the party leader and the commander of the group's militia...
...Phalangists appeared to have had at least two goals: to consolidate their hold over a 400-sq.-mi. Christian-dominated area to the north and east of Beirut, and to merge the various Christian militia units into a Phalangist-run "national guard" consisting of 40,000 men. They reportedly offered Camille Chamoun the titular leadership of the new coalition in return for his cooperation. Dany Chamoun accused the Phalangists of "treachery" and of committing "atrocities." His father said nothing, apparently hoping to protect his followers. Already about 300 members of his defeated militia had taken refuge in areas controlled either...
...country's war-clouded history. In the space of a year, Hanoi has doubled the size of its regular army to about 60 divisions of some 1 million men. With more than 2.6 million men under arms-many of them in a highly trained, combat-ready militia-Viet Nam has the third largest military force in the world.* Pulling most of its crack divisions out of Vietnamese-occupied Cambodia, Hanoi has massed 250,000 to 300,000 troops along its frontier with China. Another invasion by Peking, Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach has warned, would lead to swift...
...million-man Vietnamese militia and 70,000-man regional defense forces are still using captured U.S. arms, but regular units are equipped with Soviet weapons and ammunition. Moscow's aid, which the U.S. Defense Department estimates at $3 million a day, has furnished Hanoi with a wide range of sophisticated equipment, including radar, antisubmarine systems, two frigates and some submarines. The Soviets have also supplied a variety of antiaircraft weapons, including surface-to-air missiles...