Word: militiamen
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...thought to be in need of maintenance. Beirut authorities had again tried to refuse permission to land, but had been overruled by the hijackers and by a desperate-sounding pilot who said he had only five minutes' worth of fuel. Even as he prepared to land, Shi'ite militiamen around the airport fired their weapons out to sea, at what they said was an Israeli gunboat. The lives of remaining passengers and crew were obviously still in danger. But particularly disturbing was the news that on the plane's second stop in Beirut the previous night, some six or eight...
Another version of events came from Amal, which claimed it had abducted the eleven militiamen in an attack on an S.L.A. outpost. Whatever version was correct, at week's end, at least three of the Finns had been released, according to a U.N. spokesman...
...make certain that the P.L.O. would not regain the power it once had in Lebanon. Amal Leader Nabih Berri was convinced that Syrian-backed P.L.O. splinter groups opposed to Chairman Yasser Arafat would not assist beleaguered Arafat followers in the camps. Accordingly, Berri ordered 5,000 of his militiamen, aided by a predominantly Shi'ite brigade of the Lebanese Army, to storm the Palestinian strongholds. To his surprise, the Palestinians in the camps, supported by some of the anti- Arafat factions, not only held their ground but counterattacked. By week's end, after nearly a fortnight of fighting, there were...
...tried and failed to enter the areas to evacuate the injured. Eventually, it managed to bring out 32 wounded Palestinians, but many others were left behind without medical attention. According to some accounts, several Palestinians who had been taken to a hospital were slain in their beds by Amal militiamen. Amal leaders in turn charged that angry Palestinians had murdered some sleeping Shi'ite militiamen in a building outside the Sabra camp...
...Amal militiamen invaded three refugee camps south of Beirut expecting an easy victory, but they ran into fierce resistance. After several days of combat, an estimated 350 people had been killed and nearly 1,600 wounded. Amal Leader Nabih Berri asserted that P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat had provoked the clashes in order to stage a "theatrical return to the south, something we will not permit." In Jordan, where he had been meeting with King Hussein, Arafat called for an end to the battle, which he blamed on his enemies the Syrians...