519 news for January, February, June, July, December
with the booksMichel Aoun was born in 1935 in Haret Hreik, in the Southern suburbs of Beirut. He started his military carrier in 1955 when he was 20 years old. He specialized in artillery, and accomplished several military trainings in France and the United States before spending 2 years, from 1978 to 1980, at the Ecole de Guerre (War Academy) in Paris. Back to Lebanon, he was promoted to corporal and, on the 24th of June 1984, he became commander in chief of the Army.
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De Clerck and Malsagne give 23 June 1984 for Aoun's appointment, which contradicts the '24th of June' in the entry's own biography text. Hanf calls Aoun, commander of the Souk al-Gharb front, well liked by soldiers of both religions, and says the security plan was accepted only once the six-member command council was in place.
\_this day in full the books also date it 3 July 1984 \_on this day
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Hanf gives 3 July 1984 for the security plan's entry into force; this entry and entry 725 use 4 July. Hanf adds that the Green Line barricades were cleared at the end of July.
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Hanf calls the Arab Democratic Party militia the 'Pink Panthers'; de Clerck and Malsagne call the pro-Syrian militia of Jabal Mohsen the 'Red Knights' (Cavaliers rouges), as here.
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De Clerck and Malsagne give 8.7 pounds to the dollar for 1984, without a month.
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Fisk counts a hundred attacks on Israeli forces in December 1984, when the Sayeret Matkal commandos searched villages east of Tyre on foot and Shin Bet men beat youths each time. De Clerck and Malsagne date the complete sealing-off of the Israeli-held zone from the rest of Lebanon to autumn 1984.
\_this day in full the books also date it 9 January 1985 \_on this day
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Hanf dates the army's advance into the Sidon region to 9 January 1985, as Israel began pulling back. Some of the 15 December deployment may have been north of the Awali, which he does not detail. The southern strike is not in the books.
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Fisk's figures for December 1984 alone: some hundred attacks on Israeli forces in the south, with three Israeli soldiers, seventeen of Lahad's militiamen and eight collaborators killed.
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Picard dates the end of President Gemayel's talks with Israel to January 1985.
\_this day in full the books also date it 9 January 1985 \_on this day
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Hanf dates the army's advance to 9 January 1985, the day he says the Israelis began to pull back. In his account the plan, agreed with Walid Jumblatt, the Sidon Nasserites and the region's Christian deputies, sent a mainly Muslim battalion into the Iqlim al-Kharroub and the Sidon hinterland.
\_this day in full the books also date it 9 January 1985 \_on this day
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De Clerck and Malsagne say Edmond Naim succeeded Michel el-Khoury at the Central Bank because both the militia chiefs and the unity cabinet could accept him.
\_this day in full the books also date it 17 February 1985 \_on this day
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The withdrawal was unilateral and staged. Antoine Lahad's militia, renamed the South Lebanon Army and backed by Israel, was to police the 'security zone' Israel kept. Historians date the departure from Sidon to 17 February (Traboulsi), and the fall-back to the security zone to May-June 1985 (de Clerck and Malsagne).
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Saad survived, nearly blind, but was absent when Israel left Sidon. The UN spokesman told Fisk Israel had held up clearance by half an hour for the UN helicopter flying him to the American University hospital.
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Picard dates the end of the talks with Israel to January 1985 and links it to the Lebanese Forces' revolt two months later.