A war's senseless casualty
It was to have been a quiet peace mission, as the official Algerian announcement described it, "to try to stop the bleeding from which both the brotherly peoples of Iraq and Iran are suffering." Algerian Foreign Minister Mohammed Seddik Benyahia, 50, the gifted negotiator who helped mediate the release of the 52 American hostages from Iran early last year, and eight other senior Algerian officials were en route to Tehran to try to end the war that has racked Iran and Iraq for 19 months. But as Benyahia's Grumman Gulfstream II executive jet last week flew near...