Word: syrian
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Factional strife has ripped Lebanon again and again over the past 14 years, numbing outrage at the carnage. But last week Beirut seemed to offer a grisly preview of the apocalypse. The fighting between Christian soldiers and Muslim and Syrian soldiers rose to a pitch that tested the limits of human endurance and forced the outside world to take notice. "Beirut is being wiped off the face of the earth," cried the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio. Rival Muslim station Voice of the Nation shared, at least, the agony. "Is this meaningless war going to continue until the last Lebanese...
...adversaries have been shelling each other mercilessly since March, when Major General Michel Aoun, the determined Christian President of the divided nation, clamped a blockade on Muslim ports and declared a "war of liberation" against Syria. Last week came intimations of a more serious escalation in hostilities. Syrian-backed Muslim forces attempted to invade the Christian sector. Aoun's troops successfully repulsed the ground attack on the town of Suq al Gharb, the gateway to the Christian stronghold in the southeast of the capital. The battle of Beirut appeared to be entering a crucial phase...
Friedman explains what on the surface seems inexplicable, such as why Syrian President Hafez Assad would destroy an entire city--Hama--in his country. He knows and understands how the shackles of tradition and history have shaped the policies of leaders involved in nation-building in the Middle East...
...addition, although his captors claimed to have dumped his body near a hospital in Syrian-controlled territory in Beirut, no trace of Higgins has been found there. Marrack Goulding, U.N. Under Secretary-General of Special Political Affairs, met in Beirut last week with Shi'ite leaders and Iranian embassy personnel in an effort to recover Higgins' body. Though the effort failed, Goulding later told reporters in Damascus that there was "optimism in the air" in Beirut about the release of hostages...
...Navy attack planes are shot down over Lebanon. One pilot is killed; Lieut. Robert Goodman is captured by Syrian forces (a month later, he is released). Later that day, nine Marines are fatally wounded during a heavy-artillery attack on their observation post near Beirut airport...