The World - News from Nov. 6, 1988
The Syrian-backed Amal militia and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God) said they had concluded a non-kidnaping pact to avert a military showdown between the two main Shia Muslim factions in Lebanon. In May, Syria sent troops into South Beirut’s Shia slums to halt three weeks of fighting between the two rivals that left about 300 people dead and 1,000 wounded. But the truce has lately been strained by a spate of kidnapings of each other’s partisans in the slums, prompting a Syrian army contingent in charge of security in the Muslim sector to press for the new accord. The pact does not involve the 16 foreign hostages, including nine Americans, believed held in Lebanon.
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