Word: mortaring
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bitter new fighting erupted in Lebanon late last week after Lebanese parliamentarians braved mortar fire from leftist forces to elect a new President to replace Suleiman Franjieh, the embattled Christian leader who two weeks ago conditionally agreed to step down. Fran-jieh's replacement had been a major leftist condition for negotiations to end the 13-month-old civil war between Christians and Moslems, which has taken 16,000 lives. But fearing that Elias Sarkis, the Syrian-backed candidate, would win the election, Moslem forces launched a last-ditch effort to prevent the voting...
...toll of 110. Moslem leftists advanced on the Christian-held port quarter of the capital by blowing a passage through already battle-scarred buildings, rather than moving through the streets. The city's international airport, under Moslem control, became a target for the first time when a dozen mortar rounds crashed into a hangar area, wounding seven and setting a Boeing 707 freighter on fire. Hopes were briefly raised when units of Syrian-controlled Palestine Liberation Army troops took up some buffer positions between Christian and Moslem lines, but artillery continued to whine and crash through the city...
...into the tortured city, and between them, the storm and new political maneuvers brought an end to renewed fighting between leftists and rightists. Before the battles tapered off and an "armed truce" was reinstated, however, some 200 people had been killed in a single day in wild artillery and mortar duels. In one more senseless scene from a year long tragedy, three mortar rounds fell on a crowd of women shoppers and their children in West Beirut, killing seven and wounding...
...mountain resort Aley, Leftist Leader Kamal Jumblatt one day last week sat in his temporary headquarters, directing the siege of the nearby Christian stronghold of Kahale. Suddenly, a mortar shell whistled through the air and exploded 50 yds. away with an ear-splitting blast. Aides jumped to their feet; one suggested running for cover. "Shells like that don't do much damage," said Jumblatt calmly. He remained unruffled when an assistant rushed in to tell him that the explosion had damaged his black Mercedes. Replied he coolly: "We shouldn't park our cars over on that side of the street...
...Beirut, meanwhile, the seaside hotel district was raked by mortar and rocket fire for the third time in three months. The nearby U.S. embassy is sued steel helmets to staffers and fer ried them to and from work in armored limousines. Fighting also swept through the city's financial district, and got so close to Beirut Airport that the facility closed down for the first time in the civil war. By week's end the recent fighting brought the war's toll to over 9,000 dead...