Middle East Aftershocks in Beirut

As U.S. warships head eastward, more blood is shed

A new drama appeared to be building around an increasingly battered and bomb- shocked Lebanon late last week. It was a development that began not in the hills and valleys of southern Lebanon, where withdrawing Israeli forces faced violent resistance from Shi'ite Muslim militants, but off the Spanish island of Majorca in the western Mediterranean. There, on Thursday evening, two nuclear-powered American warships, the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower and the guided-missile cruiser Mississippi, cut short a visit so abruptly that more than 100 crew members were left behind. For 24 hours, the U.S. would say only that the ships were...

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