Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2000, pages 104-105

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

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Oct. 1, 1999: Following eight days of Russian bombing of the breakaway province of Chechnya, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said Moscow would only negotiate with the discredited Russian-backed Chechen parliament, implicitly withdrawing recognition of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.

¥In Gaza, the Palestinian Authority released three journalists detained for 24 hours for articles published in the London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Oct. 2: Serbian police blocked some 7,000 anti-government demonstrators from marching to a Belgrade hospital treating wounded protestors from police attacks on demonstrations held the previous two days.

Oct. 3: The opening of a "safe passage" between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel had agreed to implement in 1995, was delayed over Israeli insistance that it had the right to issue magnetic security cards and arrest Palestinians using the route.

¥Russian troops crossed into Chechnya for the first time since the truce that ended the 1994-96 war.

¥Serbian opposition leader Vuk Draskovic described as an assassination attempt a car crash which he survived with minor injuries but which killed his brother-in-law and three bodyguards.

Oct. 4: The U.S. said it would deport Saudi dissident Hani el-Sayegh, who had initially agreed to cooperate with U.S. officials before denying that he had any knowledge of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Dhahran.

¥Responding to an outbreak of polio in Iraq, the World Health Organization began a vaccination program for the country's 3.5 million children under the age of 5.

¥Some 20 Saudi women were admitted for the first time to a session of the government's consultative council, which they were allowed to observe from a balcony.

Oct. 5: Russia said its troops had captured the northern third of Chechnya.

¥Following the reburial of the remains of 20 ethnic Albanians exhumed from a mass grave in Kosovska Mitrovica, mourners stoned a Russian-escorted convoy of Kosovar Serbs, killing one Serb and injuring 17. At least 13 French peacekeepers were injured in the rioting that followed.

¥The French parliament passed a law recognizing as "the Algerian war" Algeria's battle for independence, which France had long described as violent "events."

Oct. 6: Iran rejected a U.S. request for assistance in arresting the men responsible for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing.

¥As U.S. jets bombed a missile site in northern Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said its warplanes are now dropping concrete bombs rather than explosives on targets in Iraq's "no-fly" zones to minimize the killing of civilians.

Oct. 8: Israel delayed its scheduled release of 151 Palestinian prisoners after Palestinian negotiators objected to the list of those to be freed, which violated terms of the September agreement on the release.

Oct. 9: Right-wing Jewish settlers in Hebron heckled a group of 20 Jordanian legislators visiting the West Bank. Israeli soldiers held three Palestinians for questioning.

¥Russian forces in Chechnya captured the key western town of Bamut.

Oct. 10: Israeli Prime Minister Barak obtained cabinet-level approval to evict Jewish settlers from some 42 newly established outposts in the West Bank.

Oct. 11: U.S. pressure succeeded in retaining the European Union ban on commercial flights to Yugoslavia, although EU ministers approved shipments of fuel oil to the Serbian cities of Nis and Pirot.

¥ Israel confirmed that, with Fidel Castro's approval, some 400 Jewish Cubans had been brought to Israel over the past five years.

¥Charged with publishing "outrageous" articles offensive to "public morality and decency," Jaleh Oskui of the weekly Penj-Shanbeh-ha became the first female editor to be jailed by Iranian authorities.

Oct. 12: Pakistan's army chief-of-staff, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, overthrew the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hours after Sharif announced Musharraf's early retirement and replacement by intelligence chief Gen. Zia Uddin.

¥Israeli Prime Minister Barak approved a decision to build 2,600 new housing units in illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, while approving the uprooting of 12 of 42 recent Jewish outposts.

¥The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Palestine Liberation Front leader and alleged Achille Lauro mastermind Mohammed Abbas was immune from trial in Israel for the 1985 hijacking of the Italian ship and killing of American Leon Klinghoffer.

¥Investigators for the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague found no bodies in a Kosovo mine shaft near Mitrovica rumored to hold the bodies of up to 700 ethnic Albanians.

Oct. 13: Israeli Prime Minister Barak agreed to allow 3 of 15 illegal Jewish settlement outposts he had ordered dismantled to remain in the West Bank.

¥As Pakistan remained calm following the previous day's coup, Gen. Musharraf imposed martial law, suspending the constitution and dismissing the parliament.

¥Russian forces advanced south of Chechnya's strategic Terek River.

Oct. 14: A week behind schedule, Israel released 151 Palestinian prisoners.

¥Visiting the Kosovo capital of Pristina, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for an end to ethnic Albanian reprisal attacks on the province's Serb population.

¥Responding to U.S. pressure, seven Serbian opposition groups united to demand early elections.

¥Afghan opposition forces repelled a major Taliban offensive in the country's northern Takhar Province.

¥U.S. warplanes bombed targets in Iraq's northern "no-fly" zone.

Oct. 15: The U.N. Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia unless it turns over Osama bin Laden, wanted by the U.S. for the bombing of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, within 30 days.

Oct. 16: For the second time in two weeks, the opening was delayed of a safe passage for Palestinians to travel through Israel from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.

¥Saying it did not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. and that Osama bin Laden was a veteran of the U.S.-supported war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Taliban leaders rejected the U.N. ultimatum that it turn over the Saudi dissident.

¥U.S. warplanes attacked a missile site in Iraq's southern "no-fly" zone.

Oct. 17: Pakistani Gen. Musharraf pledged to pull troops backs from the border with India, and to end corrupution and lead his country back to "true" democracy.

¥Interior Minister and Russian immigrant Natan Sharansky announced an end to Israel's policy of stripping native born Palestinians of their right to live in East Jerusalem.

¥NATO denied a London Observer report that it had deliberately bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war because the embassy was rebroadcasting Yugoslav army communications.

¥Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov called for urgent negotiations to end the breakaway province's conflict with Russia.

¥An Iraqi military spokesman said U.S. and British warplanes struck civilian sites in attacks on Iraq's northern "no-fly" zone.

Oct. 19: An Israeli flatbed truck sent to demolish an illegal Jewish settlement outpost consisting of a metal shipping container used to store tools retreated rather than confront militant Israeli high school students sitting along a road leading to the structure.

¥Jordan's press syndicate dismissed three of its members who visited Israel at the invitation of the Haifa University Center for Arab-Jewish Studies to research the condition of Israeli Arabs.

Oct. 20: Hundreds of right-wing Jewish settlers dedicated a makeshift synagogue at Havat Maon, one of the illegal West Bank settlement outposts slated to be torn down.

Oct. 21: Leading Turkish secular journalist and former Culture Minister Ahmet Taner Kislali was killed when a bomb placed on his car windshield exploded.

¥Israeli police questioned former Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife for nine hours about dozens of boxes seized from their home and suspected of containing official gifts which the couple kept illegally.

Oct. 22: Israeli authorities confirmed that Ofer Nimrodi, publisher of the popular daily Ma'ariv, was under investigation for possibly conspiring to kill three people, including a rival publisher.

¥Zeljko Kopanja, editor-in-chief of Nezavisne Novine, a leading independent Bosnian newspaper, was severely injured when an ignition bomb exploded as he started his car.

¥Reversing an earlier decision, a Turkish court ruled that Merve Kavakei, the Turkish parliamentarian denied her seat because she wears hijab and stripped of her Turkish citizenship because she has an American passport, was free to leave the country.

Oct. 23: Afghanistan's ruling Talilban militia said it was willing to engage in talks with the U.S. on several topics, including the status of Osama bin Laden.

Oct. 24: An Israeli court sentenced Maryland teenager Samuel Sheinbein to 24 years in prison for the murder and dismemberment of 19-year-old Alfredo Tello, Jr. Sheinbein, who could have been sentenced to life in prison in Maryland but now will be elibible for parole in 14 years, fled to Israel after Tello's body was discovered.

¥U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan accused the U.S. of "disrupting the operation" of the delivery of oil-for-food humanitarian supplies to Iraq.

¥Defense Secretary William Cohen said the U.S. plans to upgrade two airbases and an army camp it has been using in Kuwait, where 4,000 American troops have been stationed since the 1991 Gulf war.

¥U.S. warplanes attacked a missile storage facility in Iraq's northern "no-fly" zone.

Oct. 25: Four years after it had agreed to do so, Israel opened a safe passage for Palestinians to travel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

¥Israeli troops fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at hundreds of Palestinians demonstrating in Bethlehem after an Israeli soldier guarding Rachel's Tomb shot and killed 28-year old souvenir salesman Musa Abu Ihlaiel.

¥Citing concern about violence during millennium celebrations, Israel arrested 21 foreign-born Christians, including 16 Americans.

¥Israeli Prime Minister Barak, visiting Ankara, promised to boost military cooperation and economic ties with Turkey.

¥Iraq said two civilians were killed and seven wounded in U.S. and British air strikes in northern Iraq.

¥The Pakistani army announced the formation of a National Security Council to run the country until elections are held.

¥Serbian opposition groups meeting with U.S. special Balkans envoy James Dobbins urged the easing of economic sanctions against Yugoslavia.

¥As Secretary of State Albright called for Afghanistan to turn over Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, a Taliban representative met in Washington with a senior State Department official.

Oct. 26: At a news conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Cohen, Israeli Prime Minister Barak said Israel was "already spending" the $1.2 billion in U.S. aid pledged, but not yet approved by Congress, as part of the Wye River agreement.

¥Russian warplanes bombed downtown Grozny, killing 38 Chechen civilians and wounding some 100 more.

¥The first round of talks between the two remaining Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro ended with senior officials saying they were determined to accommodate Montenegrin concerns for a more equal relationship.

¥Armenian Prime Minister Pandeli Majko resigned after one year in office.

¥The rival Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan agreed to exchange all prisoners as part of a normalization of ties.

Oct. 27: Protests against the killing of a souvenir vendor by an Israeli soldier continued for a third day in Bethlehem.

¥As U.S. warplanes bombed a missile site in northern Iraq, the Clinton administration authorized the first direct military training of Iraqi opposition leaders.

¥Yemeni tribesmen in the northern province of Marib released three Americans they had held for two days, demanding the release of 25 suspects detained for an attack on an oil pipeline.

¥Nationalist gunmen stormed the Armenian parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian, Speaker Karen Demirchian and other officials, and taking some 40 hostages before surrendering to police.

¥Ethnic Albanians attacked a convoy carrying some 150 Serbs from Kosovo to Montenegro under U.N. protection.

¥On the first visit to France by an Iranian leader since the 1979 Islamic revolution, President Mohammad Khatami met in Paris with French President Jacques Chirac.

Oct. 28: Turkey's military-dominated National Security Council recommended that the mostly Kurdish province of Siirt no longer be governed under emergency rule.

¥Israel deported 20 foreign-born Christians it had detained three days earlier.

¥The U.N. Security Council shelved a proposal by Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Iraq be allowed to double the amount it is able to spend on upgrading its oil facilities.

¥Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev stated that Russian troops will occupy the breakaway republic of Chechnya "for a long time and seriously."

Oct. 29: Seven weeks after a ceremonial kickoff, the chief negotiators for Israel and Palestine met and set Nov. 7 as the date for formal negotiations to begin.

¥More than 300 members of Iraqi opposition groups met in New York to attend the U.S.-sponsored National Assembly of the Iraqi National Congress.

¥As NATO announced that about 30 percent of U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia will be sent home by April, a study by the independent International Crisis Group concluded that Western efforts in Bosnia had failed to create a multiethnic society.

¥As Afghanistan's ruling Taliban offered to convene a panel of Islamic judges to try Osama bin Laden, the Afghan Islamic Press said the alleged terrorist had agreed to leave the country if he were guaranteed safe conduct and his destination not revealed.

¥In what they described as a gesture for peace, a second group of Kurdish guerrillas surrendered to Turkish authorities.

Oct. 30: In the West Bank, assailants fired on a bus carrying Jewish settlers from Kiryat Arba to central Israel, injuring five passengers.

¥The trial on charges of apostasy of popular Iranian cleric and publisher Abdullah Nouri, an ally of President Khatami, opened in Tehran.

Oct. 31: Israel allowed Palestinian taxis serving Hebron's 130,000 residents to travel on a road bypassing an illegal Jewish settlement.

¥EgyptAir Flight 990, flying from Los Angeles to Cairo via New York, plunged into the Atlantic off the coast off Nantucket, killing all 217 people on board.