Word: tripoli
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fourth time in six months, bloody fighting broke out in Lebanon last week between heavily armed irregular forces of Moslems and Maronite Christians. The three earlier rounds of street fighting had rocked the capital city of Beirut. The latest battles revolved around Tripoli in the north, Lebanon's second largest city and seaport. Before the Lebanese army was finally ordered into the area to stop the shooting, at least 100 people had been killed. That brought the death toll since the internecine fighting started in April to well over 1,000 people, in a country with a population...
...latest battle was between the predominantly Moslem community of Tripoli (pop. 200,000) and Christians from the mountain town of Zgharta (pop. 12,000) five miles away. It erupted after a seemingly trivial incident: a minor auto accident involving Tripoli and Zgharta drivers. After a Zghartawi was assaulted, armed clansmen threw up a roadblock on the outskirts of Tripoli and halted traffic. When a bus carrying some 25 Moslems reached the roadblock, gunmen herded the passengers into the road. Without warning, a guerrilla opened fire with a submachine gun, slaughtering twelve Moslems...
...roadside execution provoked a predictable spree of Moslem revenge. Before long, the road between Tripoli and Zgharta had become a battleground. The private militias of opposing political factions hammered one another with automatic weapons, dynamite, plastique, .50-cal. machine guns and 120-mm. mortars. Newsmen who managed to reach Zgharta reported that some Lebanese army vehicles and internal-security-force Jeeps in the town had their license plates covered with paper or daubed with mud-suggesting that these units were covertly aiding the Christians. As the fighting increased between a reported 3,000-man Moslem force and 2,000 Zghartawis...
Christian Officers. The latest fighting had particularly ominous political overtones. Tripoli is the home town and political base of Premier Rashid Karami, a Sunni Moslem. Since midsummer, Karami has headed a "rescue government" whose first priority is to end the religious strife that has paralyzed the nation. Zgharta is the home village of Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh, a Maronite Christian and longtime political foe of Karami's. Indeed, the gunman alleged to have executed the Moslem bus riders is a distant relative of the President's.* Thus forces loyal to Lebanon's two highest officials were locked...
...south). Finally a compromise was worked out: Ghanem was ordered on leave. He was replaced by Brigadier General Hanna Said, a Maronite officer less objectionable to Moslems, who was quickly promoted. Two thousand soldiers were then ordered to set up a buffer zone between battling forces without entering either Tripoli or Zgharta, which might provoke an encounter...