March 1995, pgs. 109-110

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

Compiled By Janet McMahon

Dec. 1: As tensions rose between Croatian army troops and rebel forces in Serb-held Croatia, Serbian soldiers crossed the border from Croatia into Bosnia and kidnapped seven Ukrainian U.N. peacekeeping soldiers and an armored personnel carrier.

Dec. 2: Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution requiring U.N. border monitors to limit shipments of fuel and other supplies from Serbia reaching Bosnian Serb forces surrounding Bihac through Serb-held parts of Croatia. In Bosnia, the U.N. military command vetoed NATO suggestions for the destruction of Bosnian Serb anti-aircraft missiles threatening NATO planes patroling the "no-fly" zone over Bosnia.

—Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri, a billionaire contractor, resigned to protest opposition to his plans for the country's reconstruction.

Dec. 3: Iraq charged the U.S. with "unjustified military aggression" after two Iraqi ships were stopped and boarded by the U.S. navy on suspicion of violating the U.N. embargo against Iraq.

Dec. 4: As Republican leaders called for the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers from Bosnia and the bombing of Bosnian Serb positions, U.S. President Bill Clinton, in a letter to Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, affirmed that the U.S. "remains committed to the preservation of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a single state within its existing borders."

Dec. 5: As President Clinton, addressing the Council for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit meeting in Budapest, called upon the Bosnian Serbs to settle their differences "at the negotiation table, not the battlefield," Bosnian Serb forces intensified their assault on the besieged Muslim pocket of Bihac.

Dec. 6: U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher supported Israel's reluctance to adhere to its agreement to withdraw troops from the occupied territories until the Palestinian Authority put an end to attacks on Israelis by Islamic militants.

—As their Bosnian Serb captors reneged on an agreement to release an ailing U.N. peacekeeper in exchange for a substitute hostage, the U.N. asked Croatian Serb forces to allow a phased withdrawal of half the 1,200 Bangladeshi U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Bihac.

—Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri withdrew his resignation.

—Departing from the traditional selection by Shi'i clergy of a new spiritual leader, the head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, announced the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be the new leader of the world's Shi'i Muslims.

Dec. 7: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat promised U.S. Secretary of State Christopher, who visited Arafat in his Gaza office, that he would curb attacks on Israelis by militant Islamists.

—As Germany ignored a NATO request for German planes to help patrol the "no-fly" zone over Bosnia, France asked NATO and the U.N. to draw up plans for withdrawing international peacekeeping troops from Bosnia.

—In a letter to the U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions on Iraq, the U.S. accused Iran of "complicity in the smuggling of Iraqi petroleum through Persian Gulf ports" in violation of the sanctions.

Dec. 8: Although hinting it might seek changes to protect Israeli settlers as Palestinian self-rule expands, the Israeli cabinet reaffirmed its commitment to the peace agreement with the PLO.

—Bosnian Serb leaders told U.N. officials that the airlift of relief supplies to Sarajevo, on hold since Nov. 21, could resume if NATO ceased its air patrols enforcing the "no-fly" zone over Bosnia.

—The Clinton administration said it would send U.S. troops to assist in any withdrawal of U.N. peacekeeping forces from Bosnia. Meanwhile, European leaders backed away from threats to remove their troops from the U.N. contingent.

Dec. 10: In Oslo, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres accepted the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

—Secretary of State Christopher said Israel and Syria had agreed to resume informal peace talks in Washington.

—Bosnian Serbs released nearly 200 U.N. hostages and allowed a food convoy to reach Sarajevo.

Dec. 11: Israel and Jordan opened embassies in each other's country.

—Bosnian Serb troops hijacked U.N. fuel trucks and communications vehicles outside Sarajevo.

Dec. 12: Bosnian Serb forces fired antitank missiles at a U.N. armored personnel carrier in the Bihac enclave, wounding four Bangladeshi U.N. peacekeepers, one of whom later died.

Dec. 14: Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic proposed a six-point peace plan and invited former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to act as mediator.

Dec. 15: The 52-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, meeting in Casablanca, Morocco, pledged financial support to the Bosnian government and urged an increased presence of Muslim troops among U.N. peacekeepers.

Dec. 16: President Clinton agreed to send some 3,000 U.S. Marines to protect the departure of the remaining U.N. soldiers from Somalia.

Dec. 18: Former President Jimmy Carter met in Zagreb, Croatia, with Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, U.N. special envoy Yasushi Akashi, and U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith.

Dec. 19: After meeting in Sarajevo with Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, former President Carter met with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in the latter's Pale headquarters.

Dec. 20: Following their day-long negotiations, former U.S. President Carter announced that the warring parties in Bosnia had agreed to a four-month cease-fire, while Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic presented a proposed five-point "memorandum of understanding," including the division of Sarajevo into two cities, and a redrawing of the proposed contact group map to give the Bosnian Serbs more territory, including access to the Adriatic.

Dec. 21: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced a new round of secret, high-level talks designed to break the impasse over Israel's failure to withdraw its troops from the West Bank prior to Palestinian elections.

—Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri and Hezbollah leaders accused Israel of responsibility for a car bomb that exploded in Beirut's Sfeir district, killing four people, including the brother of Hezbollah's security chief, and wounding 15.

Dec. 22: One day before the scheduled start of a nationwide cease-fire, Bosnian Serbs fired two mortar shells on a Sarajevo market, killing two and wounding seven.

Dec. 23: Two Lebanese policemen were killed by Israeli helicopter fire and Israeli jets strafed suspected guerrilla targets in southern Lebanon after two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven wounded in attacks by Hezbollah, which described its own attacks as "the Islamic resistance's response to the Sfeir massacre."

Dec. 24: Four Algerian gunmen seized an Air France plane shortly before its scheduled departure to Paris, killing two of its 227 passengers and releasing some 60 others.

—Fighting was reported generally to have stopped in Bosnia, with the exception of the Bihac pocket, as the nationwide cease-fire went into effect a day later than scheduled.

Dec. 25: In Jerusalem, a suicide bomber who was a member of Hamas and of the Palestinian police force in Gaza was killed, and 13 people were wounded, when he apparently mistimed the bomb's detonation near a busload of Israeli airmen.

—Syrian-Israeli talks being held in Washington ended when Syria rejected Israel's demand for "observation points" on the Golan Heights and its suggestion that a proposed demilitarized zone be larger on the Syrian than on the Israeli side.

Dec. 26: The Israeli Knesset passed a bill barring the Palestinian Authority and the PLO from operating in Israel, which Israel insists includes all of Jerusalem.

—French paratroops stormed a hijacked Air France plane, killing the four gunmen, said to be members of Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, who, after killing a third passenger, had forced the plane to fly to Marseilles. Officials said 13 passengers, 3 crew members and 9 policemen were wounded in the attack.

—Iran's parliament banned the use in Iran of satellite dishes capable of intercepting foreign television programs.

Dec. 27: In Algeria, four Roman Catholic priests, three of them French and one a Belgian, were murdered by members of the Armed Islamic Group in retaliation for the killing of four hijackers of an Air France plane.

—Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made a surprise public visit to Oman.

—Palestinians from the West Bank village of Al Khader were driven off a village hilltop by Israeli soldiers as bulldozers arrived to clear the land for the expansion of the Jewish settlement of Gush Etzion.

Dec. 28: Rebel Muslim leader Fikret Abdic, based in the Bihac pocket, agreed to observe the Bosnian cease-fire.

—The U.S., accusing Bosnian Serbs of a new round of "ethnic cleansing," announced it would contribute $13 million in cash and services to the U.N.-established tribunal on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

Dec. 29: Following a two-day summit in Alexandria, Presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Hafez Al-Assad of Syria, and Saudi Arabia's King Fahd backed Syria's stance on its talks with Israel.

Dec. 30: Seventeen people were wounded as Israeli troops clashed with Palestinians and Israelis protesting the expansion near Al Khader of a Jewish settlement, which PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat called a "flagrant violation" of the PLO-Israeli peace accord.

Dec. 31: Egypt hanged Hamada Mohammed Lotfi, a militant Islamist convicted of plotting to kill President Hosni Mubarak.