Word: tripoli
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rumors turned into fact. At 5:30 a.m., as the city slept, Syrian artillery shells slammed into the refugee camps of Baddawi and Nahr al Barid on the outskirts of Tripoli. Three columns of attackers advanced on Arafat's forces, trapping the chairman and his men between the hills and the sea. The rebels included not only Fatah dissidents but guerrillas from Syrian-and Libyan-sponsored factions within the P.L.O. Though Damascus denied direct involvement, Syrian guns and tanks supplied the firepower while Syrian Defense Minister Major General Mustafa Tlas coordinated strategy with Abu Mousa...
...days after the beginning of the offensive, Nahr al Barid fell and the noose tightened. Last Monday, Arafat and his top advisers moved into Tripoli, igniting fears among the populace of 500,000 that the city would soon be swallowed up by the fighting. The Arafat loyalists set up artillery and rocket launchers in a grove of orange trees near the waterfront quarter and fired at the troops advancing on Baddawi, a dreary, ramshackle warren of cinder-block houses that normally is home to 10,000 people...
...leave the city. The Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf states, dispatched a delegation to Damascus. A four-day cease-fire was worked out, promptly broke down, then was patched together again. Rashid Karami, a former Lebanese Prime Minister who lives in Tripoli, asked Arafat to quit the area and "leave with all his brothers." The P.L.O. leader flatly rejected the appeal amid reports that the rebels had made their final demand: surrender now and leave Lebanon, or face an all-out assault when the truce expires on Sunday. By week...
Arafat enjoyed one advantage: if fighting spreads, the powerful militia of the Islamic Unification Movement, which controls parts of the city, has vowed to come to his aid. Both sides, however, gave their word to spare Tripoli. Arafat apparently promised not to shell rebel positions from within the city, thus risking return fire, while Abu Mousa pledged not to invade. Nonetheless, rumors floated through the city all week that Arafat was about to flee. On Thursday, Italian Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini announced that the missile launcher Orsa and the destroyer Intrepido stood ready off the Lebanese coast to evacuate Arafat...
Unless the P.L.O. leader is prepared to die, he will have to surrender or face expulsion from Tripoli, either as a condition for another cease-fire or at the anguished city's insistence. He could negotiate a slightly more dignified exit, perhaps by persuading an Arab leader to summon him for talks. Either way, Arafat will find it very difficult to turn flight into a semblance of victory, as he did when he was forced to leave Beirut last year...