Word: sects
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Adib Daoudy, 56, of Syria, is a member of the Alawites, a Muslim sect related to the Shi'ites, who form the dominant religious group in Iran. Although a foreign affairs adviser to Syria's President Hafez Assad, Daoudy has never belonged to a political party. Despite the fact that the Syrian government is pro-Khomeini, Daoudy has called the embassy hostage-taking an act that "has harmed everybody, including Iran and Islam." A graduate of the University of Damascus, he earned a Ph.D. in international law from the Sorbonne. In the early 1950s he served...
...making its presence felt in the area. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko flew to Damascus to shore up relations with Syrian President Hafez Assad, who could use the Kremlin's help to cope with his troubles. Assad's nine-year-old regime, dominated by the minority Alawite sect, has been challenged for its repression and corruption by rightist Muslims; relations with neighboring Iraq have deteriorated, and Syria was the only major Arab state that stayed away from the Islamabad summit...
...were the invaders? Most accounts still held that they were predominantly Saudis, probably members of the nomadic 'Utaibah tribe and several other tribal groups. Many were thought to belong to a fundamentalist sect that had previously agitated against TV, radio and women's rights. Yet it was clear that they were well trained, probably in South Yemen, and that the operation had been well planned. Said one Western intelligence official in the Middle East: "This was a direct attack against the House of Saud. You can be sure that the end of the battle of the Sacred Mosque...
...attackers remained unknown. The first rumor that spread through the Arab world was that the invaders were Iranian Shi'ites who had been influenced by Khomeini's recent calls for a general uprising by Muslim fundamentalists. Others speculated that the terrorists were members of an extreme Mahdist sect aligned with the Shi'ites. Still others said they were not Shi'ites at all but fanatical Sunni purists known as Wahhabis. At week's end, with the Riyadh regime saying nothing publicly, the best guess of Western intelligence experts was that the attackers were members...
Marley has always been a revolutionary but Survival indicates he now is committed fully to the use of violence to achieve his revolutionary aims. This breaks with his religious ideology--Rastafarianism--which usually extolls pacifism. Marley is a Rasta, a sect whose members believe they are the real lost tribes of Israel, and who revere Haile Selassie, former Ethiopian emporer, as their God. They smoke ganja ritually as a key part of their religion. Rastafarians have always been a peaceful folk. Marley's decision to endorse violence despite his Rastafarian commitment indicates how desperate he thinks the situation has grown...