Word: syrians
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Life in the city ground to a virtual halt. In between bouts of shelling, people rushed out to buy food and find water. Streets were deserted save for motorists looking for an open station and their share of increasingly scarce gasoline. The highway to the south, though guarded by Syrian troops, remained open, allowing thousands of people to stream out of the city and away from what they feared would be a final siege...
...moreover, would reap a bitter diplomatic harvest. Israel, which responded to the Tyre explosion by bombing Palestinian and Syrian military positions, usually can hit back and stay within the brackets of the Middle East military equation. For a superpower, such a response would reverberate dangerously and complicate Washington's other goals. Meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam last week, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned that Britain would not support U.S. strikes against Syrian targets. U.S. Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who was appointed to his post two weeks ago, planned to stop in London to see Thatcher...
...TIME has learned, intelligence agencies in the area picked up ominous indications that further terrorist attacks were planned, not only against the U.S. compound but against a much bigger target: the ships of the Sixth Fleet, which have been keeping watch off the Lebanese coast. The telltale signs included Syrian naval activity, notably around the military ports of Tartus and Latakia, as well as the movement of SS-21 and SA-5 surface-to-air missiles within Syria itself. It was unclear exactly what the Syrians were up to. Were they steeling themselves for the anticipated U.S. retaliatory strike...
...weeks ago, Syria raised its number of soldiers in Lebanon from 58,500 to 62,000. Two mechanized divisions were moved to the Syrian front on the Golan Heights, and some 30 commando and paratrooper battalions were transferred from Lebanese soil to Syrian airfields. The Israelis became even more alarmed when they learned that the estimated 500 Soviets stationed at the site of an SA-5 missile battery were heading home. One interpretation holds that the Soviets simply had finished training the Syrians to operate the batteries. The worst-case scenario: the Syrians were preparing...
...more under the control of Syria. Three of the eight separate organizations that form the commando groups of the P.L.O., including Saiqa and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, are already loyal to Syria. If Rebel Leader Abu Mousa is able to defeat Arafat with Syrian backing, he will make a bid for control of Al Fatah, the Arafat-founded group that accounts for some 80% of the P.L.O.'s strength...