Word: syrians
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...Navy planes that attacked Syrian positions in Lebanon early Fast week were meant to send a message to the government of President Hafez Assad: for every Syrian strike against American forces, such as the previous day's firing on U.S. reconnaissance planes, expect a strike in return. Unfortunately, delivering the message proved costly: two planes lost, one pilot killed, one captured, a Lebanese woman dead in the crash of one of the fighter-bombers. The air attack also sent a number of unintended messages. It told the Lebanese that the U.S. armed forces are neither invincible nor invulnerable. It told...
...week was a nine-ring circus of death and despair. After Sunday's raid came an intensive artillery barrage by Syrian-backed Druze militiamen, resulting in the death of eight U.S. Marines near Beirut International Airport. In Beirut itself, a car bomb exploded in a crowded street, killing 14 people. Nobody was apprehended, and as usual, the list of suspects was endless. Next day a terrorist bomb exploded on a crowded bus in Jerusalem, killing five Israelis and wounding 45 others. For this senseless slaughter, two warring branches of the Palestine Liberation Organization, including the mainstream group led by Chairman...
...that it could not continue to attack American reconnaissance flights and get away with it. Critics in Congress and the press, however, wondered aloud whether the attack had not been a failure (see box). Though the Reagan Administration was correct in its assertion that the raid had silenced the Syrian antiaircraft batteries, there was no indication of how long they would remain silent. In any event, the mission's successes were obscured by the criticism that followed. The Syrians were jubilant at the downing of the U.S. planes, and other Arab nations considered it at least a minor setback...
...Navy's air attack brought the U.S. closer to actual warfare with an Arab nation than it had ever been. It also seemed to place the Syrians in a somewhat stronger psychological position in regard to the U.S. Syrian authorities turned over the body of the dead pilot, Lieut. Mark A. Lange, 26, of Fraser, Mich., to the Lebanese Army for relay to the U.S. command in Beirut. But the Syrian Defense Minister, Major General Mustafa Tlas, said his government would not surrender the captured pilot, Lieut. Robert O. Goodman, 27, of Portsmouth, N.H., until "the war has ended...
...within the Arab fold, but last week one Arab state after another condemned the U.S. raid. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, expressed his government's "deep concern," while Kuwait railed against the "flagrant aggression." Even Arafat, who has been practically driven into the sea by Syrian-supported P.L.O. rebels, issued a statement backing Syria against the U.S. "I fully support the Syrian army against the American raids," Arafat told reporters while negotiations continued for his evacuation from Tripoli...