Word: molotov
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...most bitter fighting last week centered on the ongoing battle for control of Khorramshahr, portions of which changed hands several times. Iraqi armor and infantry had previously failed in repeated attempts to dislodge Iranian urban guerrilla units, which had destroyed a large number of Baghdad's tanks with Molotov cocktails. However, Iraqi commando units then succeeded in capturing most of the port area and in repelling a series of savage counterattacks by Iranian regulars and militiamen. Reported an Iranian journalist who witnessed one of the battles: "The carnage was unbelievable. The plains around the city were strewn with corpses...
Three Iranian photographers who traveled to the front last week reported that Iran was conducting a double war: a regular campaign by the armed forces, and a "people's war." Local defense councils organized teams of civilian guerrillas, armed with homemade grenades, rifles and Molotov cocktails. Said one youthful warrior: "Iraqis have never seen this type of war. They still cannot figure out how essentially unarmed men can beat tanks. O.K. They shoot us-one, two, three or ten. But finally, we set the tank ablaze, drag them out and tear them to pieces. They have seen it happen...
Just how an embassy can be "peacefully occupied" by persons bearing "machetes ... pistols and Molotov cocktails" may elude some of your readers. Also, some of the 34 "Indian peasants" to whom you refer, including the occupiers' leadership, were in fact students from our national university (Universidad de San Carlos) who, on this and other occasions, have sought to further their own political objectives by cynically exploiting campesino grievances. In panic or by design, one of the occupiers threw an incendiary device that ricocheted off a metal window grille, thereby engulfing the room in flames. The ensuing deaths were caused...
There were 34 of them, Indian peasants from the troubled Guatemalan province of El Quiché. As they entered the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City at 9:30 one morning last week, some were bearing machetes. Others, according to police accounts, were carrying pistols and Molotov cocktails. In short order, the embassy was peacefully occupied, and the Indians announced that they would hold a news conference at noon. In another part of the building were Spain's Ambassador Máximo Cajal y López, Guatemala's former Vice President Eduardo Caceres Lehnhoff and onetime Foreign Minister...
There were conflicting reports of what happened next, but one eyewitness claimed that the security forces "were hacking at the building to get in and get their hands on the peasants." The Indians apparently retreated to an inner room where, according to Ambassador Cajal, a Molotov cocktail exploded, instantly enveloping the building in flames. Witnesses claimed that the police did nothing to help the more than 40 people in the embassy. As a result, almost all the campesinos, the two Guatemalan dignitaries and two embassy staffers were burned alive. The Spanish Ambassador and one campesino, Gregoria Yuga Xona, managed...