JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1995, Pages 102-104

Facts for Your Files: A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Oct. 1: Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa criticized the recent Gulf Cooperation Council decision to suspend the secondary Arab League boycott against Israel, saying it "was not timely and does not serve the Arab negotiators' interests."

* Following a prisoner-exchange agreement with the Bosnian government, Bosnian Serbs agreed to lift week-old blockades of U.N. peacekeeping and relief convoys.

Oct. 2: Israel and Tunisia agreed to exchange economic liaison officers as a first step to full diplomatic relations.

* Palestinian police in Gaza arrested some 40 members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine following a shooting attack the previous day on a joint Palestinian-Israeli patrol.

* Bosnian Serb forces continued to block U.N. aid and peacekeeping convoys.

Oct. 3: Following a White House meeting with President Bill Clinton, Jordan's Crown Prince Hassan and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced a series of joint projects between the two neighboring countries.

* In a letter published in two Jerusalem newspapers, thousands of Palestinian prisoners appealed to President Clinton to intercede with Israel for their release.

* The German press agency Deutsche Press Agentur reported that Croatia refused a U.S. request that the former Yugoslav republic supply arms to neighboring Bosnia in violation of the U.N. arms embargo.

* Azerbaijan's President Gaidar Aliyev declared a state of emergency after charging that Interior Ministry troops had attempted a coup.

Oct. 4: Cairo talks on upcoming Palestinian elections stalled after Israel objected to the participation of members of Hamas and other groups which oppose the peace accords.

* Bosnian Serb forces refused to reopen the Sarajevo airport unless the U.N. agreed to share authority for the airport and pay fees for using it.

* In what was seen as a move to counter the influence of the conservative Ulama Council, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd appointed a Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs to be headed by his brother, Defense Minister Prince Sultan.

Oct. 5: Belgrade's airport opened to international traffic for the first time in 28 months, following the lifting of U.N. sanctions.

Oct. 7: As Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz addressed the U.N. General Assembly and demanded that the "vindictive" sanctions against his country be lifted, President Clinton ordered the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to waters off Saudi Arabia and placed thousands of U.S. troops on alert following the movement of Iraqi troops close to the Kuwaiti border.

Oct. 8: The Pentagon ordered 4,000 Army troops to Kuwait and two additional Patriot missile batteries to Saudi Arabia, as Iraq increased the strength of its forces near its border with Kuwait.

* In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, NATO officials objected to conditions for future airstrikes in Bosnia, including advance warnings to the target of an impending attack.

* U.S. Sen. Donald Riegle (D-MI) accused the Defense Department of covering up evidence of chemical weapons in Kuwait which may have contributed to the "Gulf war syndrome" experienced by thousands of returning U.S. soldiers.

Oct. 9: President Clinton ordered up to 28,000 additional U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf, and placed 24,000 to 28,000 more on alert.

* Two armed Palestinians killed 2 and wounded 13 people on a crowded Jerusalem street, before being killed by Israeli border police.

Oct. 10: Iraq announced it was pulling its troops back from the border with Kuwait.

* On the eve of a nationwide strike called by the opposition Pakistan Muslim League, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government arrested and detained hundreds of political foes.

Oct. 11: Israel suspended peace talks with the PLO after militant Hamas members kidnapped an Israeli soldier and threatened to kill him unless Israel released jailed Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and 200 other prisoners.

* At a joint news conference with Secretary of State Warren Christopher in Amman, Jordan's King Hussein criticized Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain's "adventures in this region."

* Three people were killed in widespread anti-government protests organized by Pakistani opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Oct. 12: As U.S. forces continued to mass in the Gulf, the Pentagon confirmed that Iraqi troops were withdrawing from the region near Kuwait.

* The Gulf Cooperation Council agreed to repay the U.S. for the cost of coming to Kuwait's defense and to support U.S. efforts to prevent future Iraqi threats. Meanwhile, France rejected and Britain gave only lukewarm support to a U.S. proposal for a military exclusion zone within Iraq.

Oct. 14: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres were awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

* Kidnapped Israeli Corporal Nahshon Wachsman was killed along with three Hamas militants and the commander of an Israeli commando force that stormed a house in the West Bank near Jerusalem where Wachsman was being held.

* Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arab author to win the Nobel Prize for literature, was hospitalized after being stabbed in the neck by an Islamist militant outside his Cairo home.

Oct. 15: The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution calling on Iraqi President Saddam Hussain to complete the withdrawal of troops and heavy equipment from the border with Kuwait and warned of "serious consequences" for any future such actions.

* Thousands of Islamist militants protested in Gaza against the Palestinian National Authority's sweeping arrests of Hamas activists following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.

* The deadline for Bosnian Serbs to approve the international partition plan passed without their compliance.

Oct. 16: U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said Iraqi forces, after having paused in their withdrawal from the Kuwait border, had resumed their movement north, ending the threat of an attack.

* Israeli Prime Minister Rabin announced he would open the border with the Gaza Strip and resume peace negotiations with the PLO.

Oct. 17: Jordan and Israel initialed a draft peace treaty normalizing relations between the two countries.

Oct. 18: Syria and the PLO condemned the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, with Syria's President Hafez Al-Assad saying Jordan had committed blasphemy by agreeing to rent part of its land to Israel.

Oct. 19: A Hamas militant set off a bomb inside a bus in Tel Aviv, killing 22 people in addition to the suicide bomber.

* In Baghdad, a bomb exploded in the Iraqi Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Oct. 20: In retaliation for the bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv, Israel indefinitely closed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In southern Lebanon, Israeli attacks killed seven people, five of whom were civilians.

* The U.S. announced it would halt its troop buildup in the Gulf at about 13,000 ground troops, 275 aircraft and one aircraft carrier group.

Oct. 21: Israeli shelling of southern Lebanon continued, with Hezbollah guerrillas responding by firing rockets at northern Israeli towns.

Oct. 23: Israel announced it had arrested dozens of Hamas members in a manhunt following the Tel Aviv bus bombing.

Oct. 25: The Vatican established "permanent and official" relations with the PLO, a step below full diplomatic relations.

Oct. 26: Jordan's King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin signed the peace treaty between their two countries at the border site of Wadi Araba. The ceremony was attended by President Clinton, who, en route to Jordan, met in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Oct. 27: President Clinton met in Damascus with Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad. In Jerusalem, the U.S. president called off his planned nighttime tour of the Old City after Likud Mayor Ehud Olmert insisted on escorting the U.S. leader to Muslim and Christian holy sites. The Israeli mayor did accompany Mrs. Clinton to the Western Wall, where she observed the tradition of inserting a prayer note between the Wall's stones.

* The Pentagon announced that for the first time the U.S. will deploy a squadron of attack jets in Kuwait.

* In a successful surprise attack, Bosnian government troops captured valuable weapons and some 75 square miles of territory from Bosnian Serb forces south of Bihac.

Oct. 28: Returning home from his trip to the Middle East, President Clinton visited U.S. troops in Kuwait and met with King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.

* In response to congressional demands, the U.S. introduced a resolution in the U.N. Security Council calling for the exemption of the Bosnian government from the arms embargo on the former Yugoslavia.

Oct. 30: A three-day Middle East and North Africa Economic Summit, sponsored by Russia and the U.S., opened in Casablanca, Morocco.

Oct. 31: Algerian President Liamine Zeroual announced that a presidential election would be held before the end of 1995.

* The House Foreign Affairs Committee released a State Department report criticizing the opposition People's Mojahedin of Iran as "fundamentally undemocratic," and concluding that it was not a viable alternative to the current Iranian regime.

Nov. 1: At the regional economic summit in Casablanca, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries rejected an Israeli-backed and U.S.-advanced proposal for a Mideast development bank, saying that while they supported peace with Israel, they should not be expected to finance such a bank.

* Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan said his country would hand over control of East Jerusalem's Muslim holy sites to the Palestinians when an agreement is reached on the final status of the city.

Nov. 2: At least 14 people were killed, including Col. Cherif Djelloul, a top army officer trying to negotiate the release of hostages, in a shootout in downtown Algiers following a 24-hour standoff between Islamic militants and police. FIS leaders Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj, who had been released to house arrest, were reported to have been re-imprisoned.

* Palestinian immigration officers assumed their duties, but not full control, at the Allenby Bridge border crossing with Jordan and the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

* Israeli Prime Minister Rabin rejected an offer by two Hamas clerics, Sheikh Jamil Hamami of Jerusalem and Sheikh Hussein Abu Kwaik of Ramallah, for talks between Hamas and the Jewish state.

* An explosion and floods sent burning fuel through the small village of Durunka, near Assiut in southern Egypt, killing at least 300 residents.

* Bosnian government and Croat militia forces were reported to be overrunning Bosnian Serb positions near the town of Kupres.

* Three Iranians went on trial in Paris for the 1991 assassination of former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar.

Nov. 3: At a funeral in Gaza for Islamic activist Hani Abed, killed when a bomb exploded as he unlocked his car, angry mourners accused PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat of conspiring with Israel and barred him from entering the mosque, jostling off his keffiyeh headdress in the process. All Palestinian political factions blamed Israel for the car-bombing, citing prior Israeli government threats, the sophisticated nature of the bomb and the lack of an official Israeli denial. Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge Abed's murder.

* The U.N. General Assembly voted 97 to 0, with 61 abstentions, to urge the Security Council to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia.

Nov. 4: Bosnian Serb forces launched four surface-to-air missiles into the besieged Muslim pocket around Bihac.

Nov. 5: Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller visited the Gaza Strip, where she met with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and pledged $50 million in Turkish aid.

Nov. 6: The exiled opposition People's Mojahedin of Iran said the Tehran government had fired surface-to-surface missiles at its Ashraf base in Iraq, 50 miles from the Iranian border.

Nov. 7: Amid intense security and enforced separation from the Cave of the Patriarchs, the Israeli government reopened the Ibrahimi mosque nine months after the Hebron massacre, when Jewish settler Dr. Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians at worship.

* The Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague made its first indictment, charging Dragan Nikolic, commander of a Bosnian Serb concentration camp, with murder, torture and mutilation of Muslim prisoners, and asking the German government for his extradition.

Nov. 8: In U.S. elections, Republicans gained control of the House and Senate, and many incumbent friends of Israel were defeated.

* Four people, three of them children, were killed in the worst bombardment of Sarajevo since February's NATO ultimatum.

* Israeli Prime Minister Rabin promised to speed the shift of power to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian National Authority.

Nov. 9: A Bosnian Serb jet crossed into Bosnia from an air base in Croatia and fired missiles at Muslim-held Bihac.

* Iranian jets attacked an Iranian Kurdish rebel base in northern Iraq.

Nov. 10: The Clinton administration ordered the U.S. military to stop enforcing the arms embargo against the Bosnian government.

* Jordan's King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin ratified their countries' peace treaty.

* Iraq accepted the "sovereignty of the State of Kuwait, its territorial integrity and political independence."

Nov. 11: A young Islamic Jihad militant wrapped in explosives rode his bicycle to an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza and set off an explosion that killed him and three Israeli army reserve officers and wounded nine other people.

Nov. 12: Raiding dozens of houses and a mosque, Palestinian police arrested more than 100 Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip.

* Serb forces from Bosnia and Croatia continued to close in on Bihac, undoing many of the recent Bosnian government advances.

Nov. 14: The U.N. Security Council voted to continue economic sanctions against Iraq.

Nov. 15: Israel turned over responsibility for tourism and social services in the West Bank to the Palestinian National Authority.

* Yasser Shreidi, a Libyan citizen and suspect in the 1986 bombing of a Berlin discothúque frequented by U.S. servicemen, was sentenced in Lebanon to one year in prison on charges of forging his Palestinian passport.

Nov. 16: Israeli Prime Minister Rabin arrived in the U.S. to lobby for continued U.S. aid to Israel.

* In a letter to President Clinton, incoming Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS) urged that the U.S. "act now" to end the Bosnian Serb assault on the U.N. "safe area" of Bihac.

* The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem criticized the government's decision to permit harsher interrogation of Palestinian prisoners.

Nov. 17: As France and Russia criticized the U.S. for its decision to stop enforcing the arms embargo against the Bosnian government, U.S. officials denied British reports that Washington was secretly providing intelligence and training to Bosnian government forces, attributing the charges to British and U.N. disinformation. Meanwhile, Bosnian Serbs launched a missile attack on the presidency building in Sarajevo and continued their bombardment of Bihac.

Nov. 18: In the worst internal violence since Palestinian autonomy took effect, Palestinian police in Gaza fired on a crowd of Islamic militants outside a mosque following Friday prayers, setting off hours of violent demonstrations that left 13 people dead and 200 wounded.

* Bosnian Serb jets dropped napalm and cluster bombs on the besieged Muslim town of Bihac. The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the attack and began discussing a resolution authorizing NATO to attack the airfields in neighboring Croatia where the jets are based.

Nov. 19: In Gaza, Islamic militants and the Palestinian Authority agreed on a one-day truce following the previous day's fighting.

* Following a second straight day of air attacks, in which Bosnian Serb warplanes bombed an apartment complex in the town of Cazin in the Bihac pocket of Bosnia, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution authorizing NATO attacks on airfields in Serbian-held Croatia if attacks continue to originate from there.

Nov. 20: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat released from jail 31 Islamic militants who had been detained after the Nov. 18 riots.

Nov. 21: In the largest air raid in Europe since World War II, more than 30 NATO bombers attacked the Udbina airfield in Serb-held Croatia. Serb aircraft were deliberately not destroyed, and the U.S. admiral commanding the operation estimated that the runway could be repaired in a short period of time.

* PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat addressed a Gaza rally of an estimated 10,000 people demonstrating their support.

* At a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, President Clinton promised to press for U.S. troops to be part of any peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights following a peace agreement with Syria. The U.S. president and incoming Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole also pledged to keep U.S. aid to Israel at its current level.

* NATO Secretary-General Willy Claes warned incoming Senate Majority Leader Dole and other Republican senators that if the arming of Bosnian government forces leads to more intense warfare in Bosnia, U.S. troops would be needed to cover a retreat by international peacekeeping forces.

Nov. 22: As the U.S. proposed stronger military action to protect the northwest Bosnian pocket of Bihac, Bosnian Serb forces continued their attacks on government-held positions in Bihac and fired at least one surface-to-air missile on two British jets on NATO patrol.

* OPEC oil ministers meeting in Bali agreed to freeze crude oil production levels through the coming year.

Nov. 23: As NATO planes attacked Serb missile sites near Bihac, an aide to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic threatened U.N. military commander Lt. Gen. Michael Rose with "all-out war" if NATO interfered with the Bosnian Serb advance on the U.N.-declared "safe area."

* A second rally organized in support of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat was held in Jericho.

Nov. 24: An Israeli military court sentenced to death 24-year-old Said Badarneh, a Hamas member convicted of plotting an April suicide bombing in northern Israel that killed five Israelis and the bomber. Israel has no death penalty except for Nazi war criminals and collaborators, and has not formally executed anyone since Adolf Eichmann, who was hanged in 1962.

Nov. 25: As NATO warplanes returned to their bases after failing to locate Serb targets near Bihac, President Clinton ordered 2,000 Marines to the coast off Bosnia for the possible evacuation of U.N. and U.S. personnel.

Nov. 26: An estimated 20,000 Hamas supporters rallied in Gaza, calling for dialogue rather than fighting among Palestinians.

Nov. 27: As incoming Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole called for U.N. peacekeepers to leave Bosnia so the U.S. could begin supplying arms to the besieged government, U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry implied that the Serbs had won the Bosnian war. Meanwhile, the Bosnian government accepted a U.N. plan for a cease-fire in Bihac.

* Israel and Jordan established full diplomatic relations.

Nov. 28: The European Union lifted its eight-year arms embargo on Syria.

Nov. 29: In a reversal of U.S. policy on Bosnia, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said the administration would join its European allies in advocating diplomacy, rather than the use of force, to stop Serb aggression in the former Yugoslavia.

* As the World Bank's vice president and top Middle East official Caio Koch-Weser informed PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat that only one-third of the international aid pledged to the Palestinian National Authority would be available this year, the Bank and other donor nations agreed to provide $180 million in emergency aid to the Authority.

* The Israeli army announced that it had arrested 40 members of the military wing of Hamas.

* For the second day, the Palestinian police chief in Gaza ordered three newspapers seized and their distributors arrested.

Nov. 30: U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali flew to Sarajevo, where Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic refused to meet with him and the Bosnian government refused to make any further concessions.