Word: mortared
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...announcing the collapse of Lebanon's Cease Fire No. 12, which had kept political and sectarian violence down for most of the past month. Over the Independence Day weekend - normally a time of parties, parades and speeches praising the country's ethnic harmony - rival militias fought rocket, mortar and machine-gun battles along the front dividing Beirut's Moslem and Christian communities. Hundreds of kidnapings were reported by both sides. At week's end the fighting, which spilled over into the downtown banking and hotel district, had claimed more than 100 lives, bringing the eight-month...
...twelve of Angola's 16 districts; it now appears to have only six. At week's end columns of troops were moving toward Luanda from two sides; the F.N.L.A. was a mere dozen miles to the north of the city and had already come close enough to mortar the pipeline carrying the capital its water from the Bengo River. As a result, the few VIPS attending the M.P.L.A.'S independence ceremonies were unwashed and unshaven. Meanwhile, UNITA was moving up from the south and could soon be in position to threaten the city's sole electric...
...African and Rhodesian mercenaries captured the tactically critical towns of Benguela and Lobito. Though the mechanized troops are still 400 miles from Luanda, there were few obstacles left between them and the capital. North of Luanda, meanwhile, F.N.L.A. forces were within 18 miles of the city and scarcely a mortar's lob from the capital's sole source of water. They claimed that they would wait only until the last of the Portuguese were gone before assaulting the city. The M.P.L.A. was ready. "We will succeed in the long run," said one commander, "thanks to Comrade...
...Russian-made AK-47 automatic rifles-the most common weapon on both sides-stacked in a corner of the dining room. Lunch was a pleasant affair, filled with interesting conversation; when it was over the host invited his guest to view the city from his roof. There sat a mortar, pointed in the general direction of the battle lines of the day. As the Frenchman watched in shock, the merchant dropped three quick rounds down the tube. What was he shooting at? "Ah, those Moslems," said the man, with a casual wave of his hand...
...solve the religious and class differences that underlay the shooting. Bulldozers had hardly cleared away old rubble from previous fighting when debris came crashing down into the streets from new explosions. Random incidents, typical of the insanity that stalks Lebanon today, added to the intensity of the fighting. Two mortar rounds, apparently fired on aim less trajectories from undisclosed positions, hit a street in one of Beirut's Moslem quarters where harried housewives had queued up to buy bread; 24 were killed and 40 wounded. A rocket round elsewhere took the lives of five young children. Christians were appalled...