W v
•
. j.f.
’ v ;
.
;v
un—
in a marked U.N. car flying the
pale blue U.N. flag. A lead vehi-
clecarrying two other unarmed
observers
had
just
turned
a
corner when three men with
Kalashnikov
automatic
rifles
stopped Higgins and took him
[k
:
prisoner. There were no further
sightings
of
the
colonel
last
week. "It’s like he disappeared
off the face of the earth,” said
a
State
Department
official.
Among
the
terrorist
groups
4 ^
'I
<
*
'
claiming
to
have
kidnapped
Higgins, the most persuasive
case was made by one calling
'i
itself the Organization of the
Oppressed of the World, which
circulated
photocopies
of
his
>
identity
papers.
The
group,
which appeared
to be an
off-
shoot of the Iranian-supported
s
L
i
Hizbullah
movement,
called
Higgins an "agent of the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency” and
demanded that Israel withdraw
r.
r
_
j t
_
t_i__
The Missing Americans
Terry Anderson, 40, chief Middle East corre-
spondent of The Associated Press. Kidnapped
March 16, 1985.
Thomas Sutherland, 56, agriculture dean at the
American University of Beirut. June 9, 1985.
Frank Reed, 55, director of the Lebanon Interna-
tional School in Beirut. Sept. 9, 1986.
Joseph Cicippio, 57, acting controller of the
American University of Beirut. Sept. 12, 1986.
Edward Tracy, 57, author. Oct. 21, 1986.
Jesse Turner, 40, visiting professor of mathe-
matics and computer science at Beirut Univer-
sity College. Jan. 24, 1987.
Robert Polhill, 53, assistant professor of busi-
ness at Beirut University College. Jan. 24, 1987.
Alann Steen, 48, journalism professor at Beirut
University College. Jan. 24, 1987.
Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins, 43, head of a u.n.
observer group attached to the U.N. Interim
Force in Lebanon. Feb. 17, 1988.
I
1 1
1 M7W.
1 rh'y*
Higgins took over his new command last
month—without
undergoing
all
of
the
counterterrorism training given to officers
who might become targets.
Pentagon regulations specify that
offi-
cers who have had a high security clearance
cannot serve in dangerous places. Higgins
I
fell through some cracks in the system. The
regulations do not define U.N. assignments
as potentially hazardous duty. In other cir-
portant to
the umpir
recently r
eral in ch;
"You’re n
status as
e
He cites
i
UNIFIL
f
than the
i
Higginf
cu instances,
security
special-
ists might have applied a little
common
sense
to
Higgins’s
case.
But
it
is
possible
that
Army security officials weren’t
fully aware of his background,
while Marine watchdogs didn’t
want to prevent one oftheir own
from taking an Army billet.
Higgins
became
the
10th
American
officer to command
the Lebanon detachment of the
U.N. Truce Supervision Organ-
ization (UNTSO), which was set
up in 1948 to monitor the cease-
fire between Israel and the Ar-
abs. Ofits 295 men, 36 are Amer-
icans;
the
Soviet
Union
is
another major supplier of per-
sonnel. A separate peace keep-
ing contingent in the region, the
5,800-man U.N. Interim Force
in Lebanon (UNIFIL), is autho-
rized to carry defensive weap-
ons, but the UNTSO observers
go unarmed,
in keeping with
their role as mediators between
warring factions. "It’s very im-
)e unarmed if you’re going to be
says Sir Brian Urquhart, the
tired U.N. undersecretary-gen-
"ge of peacekeeping operations,
ich better off maintaining your
person who’s above the battle.”
'ures showing that the armed
narmed UNTSO men.
was abducted as he drove alone
non and free all of its Lebanese
and Palestinian prisoners.
Eyes and ears: American officials insisted
that Higgins had nothing to do with the CIA.
Hoping to detect some trace of him, the
United States geared up
its photo-recon-
naissance satellites and electronic listen-
ing devices, which can intercept telephone
and radio
traffic. A small group of Delta
Force commandos was flown to the area.
But U.S. intelligence was chronically short
of what it needed most: human agents on
the ground in Lebanon. Because the Leba-
nese government has no real authority in
the southern region, the physical search for
Higgins was carried out by U.N. troops and
militiamen of the Amal movement. Like
Hizbullah, Amal represents members of
the Shiite sect ofIslam, but it is more moder-
ate and is not controlled by Iran.
The motive for Higgins’s kidnapping still
was not clear. An Israeli expert theorized
that Hizbullah might want to exchange the
Marine for the Hamadei brothers, two ac-
cused terrorists now held in West Germa-
ny. Some Pentagon officials worried that
the abduction might have been commis-
sioned by a foreign intelligence service. "It
was a pretty slickjob,” said one administra-
tion source. "And the kidnappers clearly
knew who they were looking for.” Now that
the damage was done, UNTSO pulled its
remaining observers back to the safety of
their headquarters. Ronald Reagan insist-
ed, however, that the kidnapping would not
force American officers to shrink from do-
ing their duty with the United Nations in
R u h s k 1. 1. W a t son with J o UN B a it
it y and
R
i c n a
it i) S a n
i) /. a in Washington and bureau reports
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
KEWSWKKK
: KKliRUARY 29, 1988
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
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CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT1
Ull
Beyond imagining: Three Palestim
gL Urn site, wium
6wS alii
Letting George Do It Now
CPYRG^HT^
aCeS ^eavy °dds against a Mideast accord
N
o one can fault George Shultz for not
trying. Late this week, following talks
in Moscow to prepare the ground for
the next Reagan-Gorbachev summit, the
secretary ofstate will fly to the Middle East
on amission of peace. Galvanized by the 11-
week-old uprising in Israel’s occupied terri-
tories, Shultz has proposed an accelerated
version of the old Camp David formula:
limited Palestinian autonomy within the
next few months, followed by negotiations
late this year on the future of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip.
It’s a wonder that
Shultz
is even
bothering.
Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir called parts ofhis
peace plan "totally unacceptable," and Jor-
dan’s King Hussein arranged to be out of
town when the secretary arrives.
"We go
into this with modest expectations," dead-
panned
one
subordinate
at
the
State
Department.
But something has to be done to end the
violence. Palestinian stone throwers and
Israeli troops are continuing their running
battles in the occupied territories. In one
particularly shocking incident that came
to light last week, Israeli soldiers on the
West Bank buried four young Palestinians
alive by dumping dirt on them with a bull-
dozer. All four survived; local villagers dug
them out after the Israelis had departed.
The Israeli Army announced the arrest of
two soldiers allegedly involved in the atroc-
ity and said more arrests were likely. But
the damage to Israel’s military honor was
already done. "Even in my worst dreams,”
said Gen. Amram Mitzna, the Israeli com-
mander on the West Bank,
'I would never
imagine such a thing.”
Outside Israel, the Palestine Liberation
Organization sufFered a setback of its own.
As
a
propaganda
stunt,
the PLO
had
planned to re-enact the 1947 voyage of the
Jewish refugee ship Exodus, this time with
a chartered ship carrying more than 100
deported Palestinians to Haifa. But before
the exiles and members of the press could
board the vessel, a mysterious underwater
explosion blasted a six-foot hole in the an-
cient ferry boat’s starboard side. "Our ship
has been damaged,” a PLO spokesman told
weeping would-be passengers, "but the re-
turn will
still take place in a few days.”
Few, however, believed that Israel would
allow the PLO ship to set sail.
When Shultz arrives in Israel, he is sure
to
encounter
stiff
resistance.
Like
the
right-wing Likud Party he heads, Prime
Minister Shamir wants ultimately to an-
nex the West Bank—the Judea and Samar-
The damage was done: Death ofa youngderm
N K W S W 10 K K
: F K B R IJ A H Y
2 9
: o s *
Approved For Release 2000/|08/Q8
: Cf
ia of the Old Testament. He adamanth
rejects the territory-for-peace concept
ai /
the core of Shultz’s peace initiative. Simui
taneously, however, Israel is scheduled tc
hold general elections for a new Knesset ir
November. The contest for prime minister
is likely to pit Shamir against Foreign Min-
ister Shimon Peres. Peres supports the lat-
est Shultz initiative, and advocates some
sort of international umbrella
for peacd
talks. Shamir
thus
finds himself under
pressure to at least appear to be concilia-
tory. But he risks losing leadership of the
Likud to the hawkish Ariel Sharon
if he
appears too soft on the occupied territories.
Shamir says he favors a measure of Pales-
tinian autonomy as prescribed by Camp
David, but he offers only cosmetic conces-,
sions beyond
that. "Shamir has already
reached the limits of his flexibility, and he
is threatened on the right,” a Shamir emis-
sary recently warned one of Shultz’s top
lieutenants.
Don’t put him under more
pressure.”
With
Shamir
apparently
intractable,
Bhultz may
find that the two key Arab
tenders
in
the region—President Hosni
lubarak of Egypt and Jordan’s King Hus-
hn
are of only limited help. Mubarak
I
ow maintains that the West Bank and
aza uprisings have made the Camp David
mcept of Palestinian autonomy obsolete,
id that an international peace conference
the only route to an Arab-Israeli settle-
ent. For his
part, Hussein apparently
Jants to keep his distance from the Shultz
i
itiative altogether. Reportedly, the Jor-
c mian monarch plans to be in London
c
tensibly for root-canal work—during the
s cretary of state’s Mideast travels. That
v du
I
d force Shultz to make a detour to
>ndon if he wishes to see the king.
The weakness ofthe Shultz plan is that it
h nges on an agreement between
Israel
a| d Jordan over the West Bank. That goal
sms as elusive as ever. Hussein, says a
rdanian
diplomat
in Washington,
"is
t interested in anything that helps Sha-
mir cool things down on
the
:
mtnr
West Bank by
giving
people
the
impression
of a
revived
peace process.” Jordan’s mon-
arch
insists that
Israel must
agree to an international con-
ference
in which
it commits
itself to yielding territory for
peace. Under Shamir, at least,
Israel
is
not
prepared
to
go
that
far.
For
all
his
readi-
ness to take on a Middle East
peace
mission
in
the
closing
months of his career as secre-
tary of state, Shultz may find
the principal players as dead-
locked us ovorl
A no u.s Dkminu with
Milan J. Kudk: in Jerusalem,
u k
i s ']' oi>iiKK Dick k y in Cyprus a n<t
Korekt
II
(
'
i m. i
. k n in Wash inrjon
/
/
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
: CIA-RDP96
CPYRGHT
2 Captured Soldiers Dead, Israel Reportedly Is Told
By Jackson Diehl
W.ohiitglun Post Foreign Service
lm:i. KAI'IM OltKU)
lid to he talking to Israelis
JERUSALEM,
Aug.
Abdul
Karim
Obeid,
the
Shiite Moslem
cleric
held
by
Israel
since
last
month, has told interrogators that
two of the three soldiers for whom
Israel hoped
to exchange him are
already
dead,
informed
sources
said today.
Military authorities are not con-
vinced
that
Obeid
is
telling
the
truth and continue to wait for de-
finitive evidence about the fate of
the soldiers, who were captured by
the Hezbollah movement in south-
ern
Lebanon
more
than
three
years ago, the sources said,
However,
the
sheik's
assertion
Israelis Reported
Two Soldiers Ar<
IgRAKU.F^omAl
bargaining over hostages now un-
said,
der way.
Nevertht
Last week, Hezbollah offered to
sources
to
free one of the eight U.S. hostages
least one o
in Lebanon, Joseph Cicippio, in ex-
been knowi
change
for
Shiite
and
Palestinian
ed during
I
prisoners in Israel but said the
Is-
their abdu
raeli prisoners could not be freed.
been specu
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin
they added
replied that
Israel would make no
soldiers rei
exchange
that excluded
its three
Obeid, tt
soldiers and
that
Hezbollah must
captors tha
provide evidence to the Red Cross
wounds
sh
on the condition of both the West-
ture.
ern and Israeli hostages as a
first
Howevei
step in any negotiation.
Israel coul
Israeli commentators said that if
the
soldiei
the
two
soldiers
are
considered
proof was
dead,
the government could
face
wise, the s
more
pressure
from
the
United
ment woul
States to agree to a bargain involv-
of Fink
ing only American or Western hos-
they were
tages.
“Once w
Such a bargain might have
little
terrorists
to compensate
Israelis for the re-
keep them
lease
of prisoners who have been
The Sun
involved
in
terrorist
acts
or
the
sources
as
ongoing Arab uprising in the occu-
graph
of
pied territories.
with an
ir
Senior
military
officials
have
arm, had
t
said that following the disappear-
rut magazi
ance of Fink and Sheikh while on
appearance
patrol in southern Lebanon, Israel
were alres
repeatedly tried and failed to find
ture
was
Lebanese contacts who could pro-
sources
ss
vide
reliable information on their
of the pic
t
condition
and
bargain
for
their
The
ne
release. The seemingly dead end
parents o i
in intelligence and quiet diploma-
formed by
and
reports
from
Lebanon
that
tend to back
it up appear to have
dealt
a
serious
blow
to
Israel's
hope of realizing what
it says was
its primary aim in capturing Obeid.
The
seizure
of
the
cleric
in
a
commando raid July 28 on his Leb-
anese
village touched
off
a
crisis
involving Western hostages in Leb-
anon
that
has now
involved
the
United
States,
Iran and
Syria
as
well
as
Israel
and
Hezbollah. A
Hezbollah-linked
group
claimed
that
it
killed
one American
hos-
tage, Marine Lt. Col. William Hig-
gins,
in retaliation for Obeid's de-
tention.
Nevertheless,
senior
Israeli
of-
ficials have said repeatedly that the
Obeid operation was conceived and
executed primarily as a way of set-
ting up an exchange for two infan-
trymen,
Yossi Fink and Rahamin
Sheikh,
and
airman
Ron
Arad,
whose plane was shot down over
Lebanon
in
October
1986.
Since
his capture, Israel has alleged that
Obeid was the chief of Hezbollah in
southern Lebanon and oversaw the
abduction
of Fink and
Sheikh
in
February 1986.
Today,
military spokesmen
did
not directly deny the report of the
two soldiers' deaths but said that
Israel would continue
to consider
its prisoners to be
alive unless
it
Hope ebbs for hostage release; U.S. unsure if Iran xmnts talks.
Page A 16
receives documentary proof
the
are dead from
an
official
sourc
such as the Red Cross.
“We don’t want to have a publi
debate about
this
delicate
issue,
said
army
spokesman
Efrair
Lapide. He added: “From time
t
time there are stories and pieces o
information concerning Israeli pris
oners of war published in Arab me
dia and Western media. We have
t<
see these pieces of information
a
part
of the
psychological warfan
carried on nowadays."
Israeli observers said reports o
the
soldiers’
deaths,
which
firs
appeared today in the London Sun
day Times, may undermine Israeli
position in the complex process o
See ISRAEL, A16, Col.
Told
d
the
more
drastic
uring Obeid,
officials
ess,
informed
Israeli
ay confirmed
that
at
the two soldiers was
to have been wound-
e incident that led to
don. There
has
long
ition in official circles,
that only one of the
ains alive.
i sources said, told his
both soldiers died of
rtly
after
their
cap-
one source said that
not publicly concede
'*
deaths
as
long
as
not
provided.
Other-
urce said, the govern-
risk sealing the fate
Sheikh
in
the event
till alive.
say they are dead, the
ill have no reason to
the source said,
ay Times quoted Arab
saying
that
a
photo-
le two
soldiers, each
ravenous
tube
in
his
:en published
in a Bei-
e days after their dis-
but
that
both men
y dead when the pic-
taken.
The
Israeli
d they were unaware
re.
spaper
also
said
the
the
soldiers were
in-
the military that their
Israeli soldiers Rahamin Sheikh, left, and Yossi Fink were on patrol in
southern Lebanon in 1986 when captured by Shiite guerrillas of Hezbollah.
sons were
believed
to be
dead.
However,
both
families
told
the
Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot today
that they received no such report.
Israel
radio
reported
that army
commanders had
called the fam-
ilies and told them not to regard
the public report of the deaths as
definitive.
The
account
by
Obeid marks
the second time that the cleric has
been reported by
Israeli sources
as providing information that un-
dermines the
military's
rationale
in
seizing
him. Two weeks ago,
Obeid was quoted by a senior
Is-
raeli official as saying that he be-
lieved
Higgins was
alive
at
the
time of the
sheik’s arrest.
Israel
maintains
that
Higgins was" not
executed
at the time claimed by
his
captors
but
rather
many
months earlier.
Senior Israeli officials have said
that Obeid
is being held
in
isola-
tion and questioned by a team of
interrogators. They
said he
has
not
been
informed
of
develop-
ments since his arrest and
is un-
aware of the dramatic announce-
ment of Higgins’s death and sub-
sequent
negotiations
over
the
hostages.
Israeli officials have maintained
that
Obeid
has
proved
a
highly
valuable source of information and
that
his
interrogation has shown
him to be a key figure in Hezbol-
lah and in its links with Iran.
However, sources
in the Arab
world
and some
Israeli
experts
have discounted those claims, say-
ing that Obeid was more a
spir-
itual figure than
a
military com-
mander and
that
his importance
diminished considerably following
the
curtailment
of
Hezbollah's
power
in southern Lebanon
last
year in battles with the rival Anial
militia.
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
: CIA-RDP96-00789R000400040001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
:
CPYRGHT
Tuesday, Febkuahy 23, 1988 A17
WORLD NEWS
North Korea’s Isolation Seen Dangerous for Its Foes
“
U.S, Officials Say They Fear Jetliner's Sabotage May Not Be Pyongyang's Last Attempt to Disrupt Olympics
ss
mm..
S:
Si
ji
'
^
I
mm
By Patrick E. Tyler
V":
B/
r * v.v
- -aa. M
'
~
~
V-
•
,
-u .-r.
'.j,.'
- rrr.
mi
orken dig through rubble *f a thm-ftory apartment house that colkpeed
Harish said Army rules “aliow for
e use of force to disperse protest-
s and to carry out the arrest of
tspects who resist arrest But the
< of force must be within a
rea-
dable measure to reach the aim
r which
it is used.
It ceases when
‘
~
w reached—with the dis-
-bll in Rio’s Deluge Reaches 76
Jillside Slums Washed Away; Brazil’s Loss to Rains 263 Since Feb. 2
I RIO
DE JANEIRO—Sr**—
pins continued —
state of Rio de Janeiro. Earlier this
month, rains devastated the moun-
tain town of Petropolis, Brazil's old
igerators to safety. In answer to
government's
appeals,
rea-
$ from all over the city donated
DUBAI, United Arab
Emirates,
Feb.
22—The
U.S.
Navy,
which
now
considers
errant
Iraqi
war-
planes as the most pressing threat
to American forces in the Persian
Gulf, was expected to remind Bagh-
‘ dad
in
talks opening
there
today
- that
U.S.
warship
commanders
1 haw the authority to shoot down
Iraqi aircraft approaching UJS. ves-
' seta.
A four-man Navy team led by the
chief of staff of the U.S. Middle East
Force
based
in
the
gulf met with
Iraqi military officials amid what U.S.
officials described as growing frus-
!
' (ration that Iraqi pilots have failed to
adhere to rules
laid down after last
May's
Iraqi
missile
attack
on
the
USS Stark, which lolled 37 American
sailors.
The
Navy
delegation was
dis-
patched
after an
Iraqi
long-range
Tul6 bomber
fired
two
powerful
antiship missiles near
t convoy of
U.S.
warships and
reflagged
Ku-
waiti tankers on the night of Feb.
12 .
Under rules worked out between
Washington
and
Baghdad
last
spring, U.S.-manned airborne warn-
ing and
control system (AWACS)
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
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