Word: syrian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...centuries the route to Damascus has posed a challenge to travelers. The Syrian capital is walled away from the West and from the Mediterranean by the double massif of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges, rising to 10,000 ft. In other directions, the city is surrounded by the Badiya as-Sham, the great Syrian Desert, where, for seven months of the year, the relentless sun becomes a blinding enemy. But while the physical obstacles to Damascus remain, other barriers appear to be falling. Its economy in tatters, its army mired in Lebanon and its alignment with Iran a growing...
...same time, the Soviet Union has been urging one of its closest allies in the region, Syrian President Hafez Assad, to show some signs of moderation in order to increase his influence with his neighbors. In April, not long after his return from a trip to Moscow, Assad went to Jordan for a secret meeting with his long-time enemy, Iraq's President Saddam Hussein. Except for Libya, Syria is the only Arab state that backs non-Arab Iran in its seven-year war with Arab Iraq. Assad is believed unlikely to be ready to change sides in the gulf...
...Lebanon, meanwhile, the U.S. suffered another disappointment. After a week of threats and pressure from Syria, Shi'ite Muslim extremists released Ali Osseiran, the son of Lebanese Defense Minister Adel Osseiran, a Shi'ite political ally of the Syrians.' But the terrorists did not free Charles Glass, an American television journalist who was abducted a week earlier along with Osseiran. Brigadier General Ghazi Kenaan, intelligence chief for the 7,500 Syrian troops that occupy most of the Muslim half of Beirut, had said he would free both Glass and Osseiran "at all costs." Late in the week he began restricting...
...Washington, White House officials disclosed last week that Syrian President Hafez Assad had accepted a written proposal from President Reagan for high-level talks on a variety of issues. The U.S. envoy to Damascus is likely to be Ambassador to the United Nations Vernon Walters...
...abduction was a particular embarrassment to Syrian President Hafez Assad, whose forces ostensibly control the Muslim half of Beirut. Glass was the first person to be kidnaped since 7,500 Syrian troops entered the city on Feb. 22, and to make matters worse, Syrian troops manned a checkpoint just 350 yds. from where the abduction took place. Moreover, the elder Osseiran, head of a powerful Shi'ite clan in Lebanon, is an important Syrian ally in Lebanese politics. Assad's troops began an intensive search for the latest kidnap victims, but by week's end they had turned...