Word: muslim
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...long run there may even be targets of opportunity for the West created by ferment within the crescent. Islam is undoubtedly compatible with socialism, but it is inimical to atheistic Communism. The Soviet Union is already the world's fifth largest Muslim nation. By the year 2000, the huge Islamic populations in the border republics may outnumber Russia's now dominant Slavs. From Islamic democracies on Russia's southern tier, a zealous Koranic evangelism might sweep across the border into these politically repressed Soviet states, creating problems for the Kremlin...
Once major trouble spot on the crescent of crisis is Pakistan. Less a country than an idea for a Muslim republic that has never quite worked, Pakistan is a federation of four provinces, each of which has a formidable sense of regional identity. The largest (133,000 sq. mi.) and most turbulent of these jostling fragments is actually part of a tribal nation without defined borders, whose people also inhabit the eastern fringe of Iran and the southern tier of Afghanistan. This nation was literally quartered by the British map makers who brushed in arbitrary political boundaries during their heyday...
...Baluch launched a revolt against the regime of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who retaliated harshly over the next four years. At the peak of the fighting, the Shah supplied helicopters and pilots to help 70,000 Pakistani soldiers put down the rebellion of 55,000 bearded, turbaned Muslim guerrillas, who were mostly armed with local versions of Britain's Edwardian-vintage Lee-Enfield rifle. Since then, the Baluch have been relatively quiet. But members of a Marxist Baluchistan People's Liberation Front have found sanctuary in Afghanistan, and resentment of Pakistan's unfulfilled promises...
...being brutally tested in ways similar to the more drastic turmoil in neighboring Iran. But there were also differences. The key one was that the violence that threatened Ecevit's government was based on religious rivalry. One of the factions is Turkey's Shi'ite Muslim minority (known locally as Alevis), which comprises 25% of the country's 41 million people. The Alevis are regarded as left-leaning and generally support Ecevit's Republican People's Party. The other is the country's Sunni Muslim majority (72%), who consider the Shi'ites...
...Still, Western experts were focusing on several possible contenders, and Bitat was not among them. The leaders: Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 41, an agile, Westernized diplomat; Colonel Ahmed Bencherif, 51, former commandant of the national gendarmerie and now Water Resources Minister, and Colonel Mohammed Salah Yahiaoui, 46, a devout Muslim and pro-Soviet politician who is currently running the F.L.N. Outside the council, the name most often mentioned is that of Colonel Benjedid Chadli, 52, military commander of the Oran region, who took over as "coordinator" of the armed forces during Boumedienne's long illness. Virtually no chance...