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U.S. Cautious About ‘Signals’ of Hostage Release
r
ri
I
we’re
always work
By Lou Cannon
Washington Post Staff Writer
The
Reagan
administration
is
exploring “inconclusive signals” that
some of the nine American hostages
now
held
captive
in Lebanon
will
soon
be
freed,
a
knowledgeable
U.S.
official, who asked not to be
identified, said yesterday.
But
the
administration
is
ap-
proaching
the
issue
gingerly
be-
cause of its sensitivity and because
past reports of prospective hostage
releases have not proved accurate.
White House spokesman Marlin
Fitzwater, commenting on a story
in The
Wall
Street Journal about
“fresh hopes” that some of the hos-
tages may be
released before
the
end of the year, said he knew of no
change
in the
situation, Fitzwater
said
“we're
always
hopeful
anr
CPYRGHT
fways
working,
but we've
also had those hopes dashed so
of-
ten
that
we're
reluctant
to
read
anything into those events,”
The events to which he referred
include the recent release of a West
German hostage, apparent political
changes in Iran and a message last
week from one
of
three
Iranian-
backed terrorist groups thought to
be
holding
U.S,
hostages.
The
group released a photograph of two
hostages,
Alann
Steen
and
Jesse
Turner,
and
issued
a
statement
hinting that they might be freed
if
the United States supported Pales-
tinian autonomy.
Fitzwater
said Reagan
plans
to
raise the hostage issue next week
when he meets with a number
of
the region’s foreign ministers dur-
ing a two-day U.N. visit. But an of-
ficial who participated in a planning
meeting Secretary or Mate ueorge
P, Shultz conducted for the trip said
the issue would be brought up only
“peripherally.”
Nonetheless,
officials
said
they
took seriously various signals that
some U.S. hostages may be freed.
“This is such a sensitive and emo-
tional
issue,
it's
best
not
to
talk
about
it publicly at this time,” one
official said.
On other issues yesterday Rea-
gan signed a spending
bill that
al-
locates
$1.2
billion
for
the
fight
against acquired immune deficiency
syndrome and prodded Congress to
complete work on 13 appropriations
bills before fiscal 1989 begins Oct.
1. Reagan also urged Congress
to
complete work on a $299.5
billion
defense
appropriations
bill
similar
in some of its features to a defense
authorization bill he vetoed earlier.
"I mm defense legislation lu cun*
tinue the
policies of the
last eight
years—the policies that led the So-
viets to the bargaining table and out
of
Afghanistan,”
Reagan
said.
“I
want
defense
legislation
that
will
advance national security, not sac-
rifice it on the altar of congressional
pork barrel.”
At
the
same
time,
Fitzwater
praised Congress for making prog-
ress
on
appropriations
measures
and said Defense Secretary Frank
C. Carlucci was ready to negotiate.
“We’re trying to walk a fine line
between praising the Congress and
prodding
it on these appropriations
matters,” said an official.
CPYRGHT
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CPYRGHT
U.S. Karate Expert Frees
Himself, Bride From Captors
Washington Post Foreign Service
BEIRUT,
Sept. 12—An Amer-
ican who had just been married to a
Lebanese woman
used
karate
to
escape,
still
wearing
his
tuxedo,
from men who tried to abduct him
and his bride shortly after the wed-
ding yesterday, sources here and
U.S
officials in Washington said.
CPYRGHT
Kenneth Wells, 25, who officials
said works in Saudi Arabia, and his
wife,
Sarnia, were
seized
as they
left their wedding reception inJBaal-
hek, 50 miles east of Beirut.
Wells, who has
a
black
belt
in
karate, according to his wife, over-
powered his attackers and the cou-
ple
fled to a Syrian military post.
They were taken to the U.S. Em-
bassy in Damascus and released.
In
Washington,
State
Depart-
ment spokesman Charles Redman
expressed
gratitude to
Syrian au-
^jjOj^jggjorBiei^assistance^
in Washington said.
I
ttflOUgS ior meir
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i
<
&?Vrght
HOSTAGES IN LEBANON
Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent of The Associated Press,
March 16, 1985,
.
,
.
?
.
.
;
Thomas Sutherland, dean of agriculture at the American University of
Beirut, June 9, 1985.
j
.
T
Frank Herbert Reed, director of the Lebanon International School in Beirut,
Sept, 9, 1986.
-
J
’
‘
•
Joseph James Clcipplo, acting comptroller of the American University of
Beirut Sept.
12, 1986.
Edward Austin Tracy, author, Oct. 21, 1986.
Jesse Turner, visiting professor of mathematics and computer science at
Beirut University College, Jan. 24, 1987.
Robert Polhill, assistant professor of business at Beirut University College,
Jan. "4, 1987.
Alann Steen, journalism professor at Beirut University College, Jan. 24,
1987.
Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, head of a 75-man observer group
attached to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, yesterday.
Alec Collett, March 25, 1985.
John McCarthy, April
17, 1986.
Terry Waite, Jan. 20, 1987.
Marcel Fontaine, March 22, 1985.
Marcel Carton, March 22, 1985.
Michel Seurat, May 22, 1985.
Jean-Paul Kauffmann, May 22, 1985
v; *
* i
ir?TT*r
Rudolf Cordes, Jan.
17, 1987.
Ralph Rudolf Schray, Jan. 27, 1988.
tmmomm
MlthNoswar Singh (Indian), Jan. 24, 1987
Brian Keenan (Irish), April 11, 1986.
Alberto Mollnarl (Italian), Sept.
11, 1985
William Jorgensen (Norwegian), Feb.
5, 1988.
Jan Stoning (Swedish), Feb.
5, 1988.
Two people of unknown nationality were kidnaped Jan. 26, 1987.
NO ft:
In M,vch 1986 tstamic Jib<>d ctnirmod that Michel Sournt had boon killed. The following,
month tho RovcUihcnary Organization of Socialist Moslems said Aloe Collett had boon killed.
SCUP r r:
Assccated Press
Approved hor Re lease 2UUU/U8/U8
: CITTRp^
_
The Washikcti
Gunmen in Leb;
f
American Marin
LEBANON, From A1
neighboring
Arab
countries.
The
organization’s 75-man unit
in Leb-
anon,
tyhich
Higgins
headed,
'
worked closely with the much
big-
ger—and better known—U.N.
In-
terim Force in Lebanon, the actual
peace-keeping force.
Higgins, according
to witnesses
and U.N. officials here, was return-
ing
to
the
U.N.
peace-keeping
force's
headquarters
at
Naqurah,
miles south of Tyre, when he
was
abducted
at
2:15
p.m.
local
time (7:15 a.m. EST). He was driv-
ing alone
in a U.N, car
flying the
biue-and-white U.N. flag, they said,
• following
another
U.N.
vehicle,
-when
three
men
armed
with
Kalashnikov
assault
rifles
inter-
cepted
his car as the
first
vehicle
rounded a curve near Ras Ain, four
miles south of Tyre.
I
Witnesses said they saw the gun-
j
men shove Higgins into the trunk of
i
a red Mercedes and speed off with
him along a dirt road forking off the
main coastal highway.
When the three U.N. officers
in
j
the
first
vehicle
realized
Higgins
was no longer following them, Gok-
sel
said,
"they
turned
back
and
found Higgins* car empty.”
The
coastal
stretch
where
the
attack
took
place
is
contested
by
the Amal militia and the more rad-
ical,
Iran-backed
Hezbollah
move-
ment, which in 1986 launched rock-
et attacks
against
soldiers
of
the
U.N. peace-keeping force.
Amal chief Nabih Berri went into
a closed
session with key
military
r n n
a
*
CPYRGHT
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HOSTAGES
The Lost Life
Of Terry
Anderson
The American journalist is beginning
hisfifth year in captivity somewhere
in the bowels ofBeirut, a coin
for a cruel human barter that no
one has been able to redeem
CPYRGHT
BY SCOTT MACLEOD
I
magine it. You are chained to a radia-
tor in a bare, dank room. You never
see the sun. When your captors fear
that a noise in the night is an impending
rescue
attempt,
you
are
slammed
up
against
the
wall,
the
barrel
of
a
gun
pressed
against your
temple. Each day
you have
15 minutes
to
shower,
brush
your teeth and wash your underwear in
the bathroom sink. Your bed
is a mat on
the floor. One of your fellow hostages tries
to escape, and the guards beat him sense-
less. Another tries to commit suicide. One
day you too reach the edge of your sanity.
You begin furiously pounding your head
against
a
wall.
Blood
oozes from
your
scalp and smears down your face.
Life has been like that for Terry An-
derson ever since March
16,
1985, when
the chief Middle East correspondent
for
the
Associated
Press
was
kidnaped
in
West Beirut. The men who grabbed him.
members
of the
Shiflte Muslim
funda-
mentalist group called Hizballah, were in-
tent on swapping Western hostages for 17
comrades imprisoned in Kuwait for a ter-
rorist spree. Four long years later, Ander-
son is still held hostage. From accounts by
his
former
fellow
captives.
Time
has
pieced together a glimpse of the
life he
has led.
The first day: Terry Anderson lies on
a cot
in a dingy apartment
in
Beirut’s
sprawling, bomb-ravaged Shflite slums. A
blindfold
is
tightly wrapped around
his
head, and chains shackle a wrist and an-
kle, biting into the flesh. He can hear the
roar ofjets; Beirut airport is near. The for-
mer U.S. Marine is stunned and sobs con-
stantly, frustrated, angry and afraid that
the kidnapers intend
to execute him. A
guard bursts in and threatens him merely
because he creaked the bed springs. “I am
a friend of the Lebanese,” Anderson had
told his family. “They won’t kidnap me. I
tell their story to the world.”
Anderson is lost in the bowels of Bei-
rut, but he is not alone. In the same 12-ft.
by
15-ft.
bedroom,
also shackled hand
and foot and crouching on the floor of a
dirty
clothes
closet.
Father
Lawrence
Martin Jenco of Catholic Relief Services
(kidnaped Jan.
8,
1985) peers under his
blindfold at the new arrival. A month lat-
er, they are led down
to the dungeon, a
basement partitioned into cramped cells
with thin plasterboard, and held prisoner
with others: William Buckley, Beirut sta-
A hostage’s never ending ordeal: a
picture chronicle of Anderson’s
captivity. When it suits them, the
kidnapers send Polaroids or
videotapes of their hostage to a
news agency in Beirut. The pictures
accompany the kidnapers’ repeated
demands; in the videotapes,
Anderson usually pleads for help to
win his freedom. The final words in
his last message: “One day soon,
God willing, this will end.”
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CPYRGHT
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lion chief of the CIA {kidnaped March
16,
1984), the Rev. Benjamin Weir, a Presby-
terian
missionary
(kidnaped
May
8,
1984), and eventually David Jacobsen, di-
rector of American
University Hospital
(kidnaped May 28, 1985).
The hostages are
repeatedly
threat-
ened with death. Their meals consist of
Arabic bread, foul-tasting cheese and tea.
Buckley’s treatment reveals the full cruel-
ty of the kidnapers. lie catches a bad cold
that
develops
into
pneumonia,
but
the
guards show him no mercy. “Mr. Buckley
is dying,” Father Jenco pleads one day.
“He
is sick. He has dry heaves. Give us
liquids.”
Speaking to one another in whispers,
the hostages listen to Buckley’s moans as
he grows weaker, and finally delirious. On
June 3, Buckley squats on the tile floor be-
lieving that he
is sitting on a toilet seat,
and food fantasies
fill his head. “I’d like
some poached eggs on
toast, please,” he
mumbles. “I’d like an order of pancakes.”
That night Buckley starts making strange
grunts and
the
others
realize
they
are
hearing the rattle of death, and a guard
comes and drags Buckley’s body away.
Anderson’s
first letter to his family con-
tains his last will and testament.
Out of the blue comes hope. At the
end of June Anderson learns that TWA
Flight
847
has
been
hijacked
and
American
passengers
are
being
held.
Hajj, the chief guard, arrives with word
that a package deal is in the works. "You
will be going home,” he says.
Nothing happens. The guards, how-
ever, improve
living conditions
for An-
derson and the others, apparently in fear
they might fall sick and die like Buckley.
“Christmas
in
July”
brings
dinner
of
Swiss steak, vegetables and fruit, medical
checkups by a kidnaped Lebanese Jewish
doctor, and the chance to start worshiping
together. Anderson, once a lapsed Catho-
lic whose faith now grows stronger by the
day, wheedles permission
from
Hajj
to
make his confession to Father Jenco. Lat-
er,
all
the hostages are allowed
to hold
daily
services
in
their “Church
of
the
Locked
Door.” They celebrate Commu-
nion with scraps of Arabic bread. Ander-
son tells the guards to shut up when they
mock the Christian service.
After the
first worship.
Pastor Weir
reaches out and grasps Anderson, and the
two men
hug. Perhaps worried
that
the
frail minister might be slipping, Anderson
urges him
to be strong. “Don’t give up,”
he tells him. “Keep going.”
Another
new
hostage
has
arrived,
Thomas Sutherland, dean of agriculture
at American
University (kidnaped June
9,
1985).
Eventually
the captors permit
their prisoners to be together all the time
and
to remove their blindfolds when the
guards are out of the room.
O
ne day
in September,
Hajj
raises
everybody’s
hopes
again
by
an-
nouncing that a hostage will final-
ly be released. He has them play a cruel
game: they must choose
for themselves
who will go free. “Think
it over,” he com-
mands as he walks away.
The hostages drag their agonizing dis-
cussion
late
into the
night. Pastor Weir
and Father Jenco make no effort to put
themselves forward, and Sutherland is too
much of a gentleman. But Anderson near-
ly takes a swing at Jacobsen as the two
men engage in a bitter contest to be cho-
sen. Anderson wins the vote, but then
is
devastated when Hajj refuses to abide by
the decision. “Terry Anderson will not be
the
first
to be
released,” he snaps. “He
might be the last one.” A few nights later,
Hajj tells Pastor Weir he is going home.
On Christmas Eve the hostages hear
on the radio that Church of England envoy
Terry Waite has
failed
to negotiate their
freedom, and has returned to London. An-
derson
is crushed.
Father Jenco
tries
to
sing carols but
is too depressed. Jacobsen
draws a crude Christmas tree on a piece of
cardboard and sticks it on the wall.
Anderson fights back boredom and de-
pression by throwing himself into
habits
and hobbies. Each morning he obsessively
!
cleans the sleeping mats and lakes spirited
40-minute walks around and around
the
room. When he fashions a chess set from
scraps of tinfoil, the guards take the game
away. Anderson takes French lessons from
Sutherland, and stays up all night reading
the Bible and
novels by Charles Dickens
that the guards provide.
After solitary confinement, the cama-
raderie is energizing. From memory Suth-
erland
recites
the poetry of his beloved
Robert Burns, in the brogue of his native
Scotland
(he
once
played
professional
football with the Glasgow Rangers). Fa-
ther Jenco takes the hostages on an imagi-
nary Lour of Rome and the Vatican. An-
derson makes a deck of cards from paper
scraps, and they all play cutthroat games
of hearts.
Like
sophists,
Anderson
the
liberal
Democrat and Jacobsen the Reagan Re-
publican constantly provoke each other
into arguments to keep their minds alive.
More than the others, Anderson chal-
lenges the guards, although for some rea-
son he
is beaten less frequently. He goes
on a seven-day hunger strike when they
suddenly ban the radio and the occasional
copies
of the
International Herald
Tri-
bune. He does not know
it. but the news
blackout
is imposed so he will not learn of
the deaths of his father and brother back
in the U.S. He does find out. however, that
since his kidnaping his second daughter,
Sulome, has been born.
In July 1986 Father Jenco is freed. Ja-
cobsen goes home in November, but the
public revelation of a secret
U.S. arms-
for-hostages deal with Tran torpedoes any
further releases. Two months later, Waite
the mediator is himself kidnaped
Feeling
increasingly
abandoned
by
his government, Anderson spends much
of 1987 in isolation. In December he gets
a new roommate, French diplomat Mar-
cel Fontaine (kidnaped March 22.
1985).
Anderson
is denied
permission
to send
out a videotaped Christmas message
to
his family. The frustration becomes un-
bearable, and one day he walks over to a
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wall and beats his head against
it. Blood
seeps
from
Anderson’s
scalp.
“Terry!"
Fontaine pleads. “Think of your family!”
All
the hostages find the cruelty too
much to take. Sutherland, who had gone
to Beirut passionately hoping to help Leb-
anese farmers,
is treated worse than the
others,
l ie tries to kill himself by putting a
nylon sack over his head. A more recent
kidnap victim, Frank Reed,
director of
the Lebanese International School
(kid-
naped Sept.
9,
1986), attempts to escape
but
is caught. The guards beat him
vi-
ciously and break his spirit, leaving him
prostrate on the floor.
In 1988 Anderson and Fontaine find
themselves in an apartment that has car-
peting, heat and hot food. Are they being
fattened up
in
preparation
for
their re-
lease? Despite
the constant
disappoint-
ments, Anderson
is determined
to think
about his future. He ponders quitting jour-
nalism
to
take up
farming. At
last on
May 3, after he has spent more than three
years as a hostage, his time appears to have
come when a guard tells him to get ready.
“You should do the same as I’m do-
ing,” Anderson
says,
trying
to improve
the Frenchman’s chances. At midnight
they come and take Anderson away. Two
hours later, Fontaine learns that
it
is he
who is being freed.
Fontaine remembers a conversation
with Anderson. Feeling
ill and more de-
pressed than usual, he had turned to An-
derson and said, “Terry, I am not afraid to
die. But I don’t want to die here and have
them throw my body into the sea like they
did with Buckley.”
Anderson thought for a moment and
replied, “I don’t want to die anywhere.”
Five months ago, Anderson’s most re-
cent videotaped message was dropped off
at a Western news agency in Beirut. Sign-
ing
off, he said
to his family, “Kiss my
daughters. Keep your spirits up, and I will
try
to do the same. One day soon, God
w i 11 i n g ,
this wi 1 1 end
. ” — With reporting by
William Dowell/Paris and Edwin M. Reingold/Los
Angeles
Anderson in his most recent videotape
^_^^hn^hjis.also a prime suspect in the 1985 skyjacking of TWA Flight 8
The Man Who Holds the Hostages
I
t is no secret who holds Terry Anderson. Imad Mughniyah is his name. He is a 38-
year-old Lebanese leader of the Shihte fundamentalist group Hizballah whose his-
tory of terrorism is grislier than the record ofPalestinian renegade Abu Nidal. Mugh-
niyah’s villainy, U.S. officials say, runs from bombings, like the suicide attacks on the
U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, to hijackings. He is a prime suspect in
the U.S. for his alleged role in the 1985 skyjacking of TWA Flight 847 in which a
Navy diver was murdered. And he has made a specialty of kidnaping: U.S. officials
believe that Mughniyah, under the cloak of cover names like Islamic Jihad and the
Revolutionary Justice Organization, has been involved in the kidnaping ofat least 3
Westerners since 1984 and that he continues to hold most of the 13 still in captivity.
The kidnapers specifically wanted Terry Anderson. Fatefully, perhaps, the re-
porter advertised his availability the day before his capture, when he ventured into
Bei ait’s southern suburbs to quiz Hizballah spiritual leader Sheik Mohammed Hus-
sein Fadlaltah. But Anderson’s colleagues at the Associated Press believe he may
have put himselfon Hizballah’s blacklist as far back as 1 983, when he traveled to their
stronghold in Baalbek to grill Shi‘ite leaders about the bombing of the U.S. Marine
barracks.
The grandson ofa Shi‘ite mullah, Mughniyah trained with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah
faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. A high school dropout, he excelled
at terrorism; his boldness and quick grasp of explosives and weapon ry impressed his
commanders. But he fell out with Fatah leaders and in 1982, when Israeli troops
invaded Lebanon and occupied his village, Teir Debbe, Mughniyah joined the newly
formed and more radical Hizballah (Party ofGod). He took to wearing religious garb
even as he recaiited activists and professionals to the Shi'ite cause. He rose quickly to
the top of the organization, and as security chief, Mughniyah is thought to be the
group’s most powerful figure. He continues to hold the Westerners captive despite
public pleas from Fadlallah that they be set free.
His original motivation was to avenge the mistreatment of Shi'ites in Lebanon
and to vent his hatred of the U.S. and Israel. But U.S. sources say he has become
obsessed with trying to secure the freedom of his brother-in-law Mustafa Badreddin
and
16 other Shiites jailed in Kuwait after a
1983 bombing
blitz. Mughniyah
launched his subsequent kidnaping and hijacking spree to spring the 17 in a prison-
ers-for-hostages swap. Among his victims: William Buckley, the CIA station chief,
who died in captivity.
Mughniyah reportedly gets his financing from Tehran, and is considered Iran’s
man in Lebanon; his closest mentors there include conservative leaders locked in
rivalry with Iran’s would-be pragmatists. Even so, Mughniyah has been forced to free
numerous American, French and West German hostages when it served Iran’s inter-
ests, while his personal demands have never been met.
Mughniyah seems content to bide his time until the U.S. breaks. But he has not
tired of fueling ways to press Hizballah’s confrontation with the West. Britain’s
Guardi#
ewspaper reported last month that he was busy organizing mass demon-
stration,
^Lebanon. The cause: demanding Salman Rushdie’s death for writing The
SnU:\
.
.
£ses-
TIME. MARCH 20. 1989
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The
POST
•
WEI)MA».taR liABv8.1989 A35
Iranian’s Unexpected Visit to Britain
Raises Hopes for Progress on Hostage^J
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
By Jonathan C. Randal
Washington Post Foreign Service
>; LONDON, Feb. 7—Iranian For-
eign
Minister
Ali Akbar
Velayati
arrived
here
unexpectedly
today
and conferred with his ^ritfelrjroqn-
terpa^ih what was seen && pos-
sible Indication o| thawing relations
that could favor release of western
hostages held
in Lebanon by pro-
Iranian groups,
-
:
:
Diplomatic sources said that Ve-
layati's
visit
itself—the
first here
by an Iranian foreign minister since
the Islamic revolution in Tehran 10
years ago—outweighed the impor-
tance of his brief remarks after con-
ferring
. with
Foreign/ .Secretary
Geoffrey Howe at the Foreign Of-
fice.
"All of us want to work for the
release of the hostages no matter
what their nationality/* he said, re-
iterating Iran's position on western
hostages, most of them British or
American, who
are
held
by
pro-
Iranian groups in Lebanon, and on
three Iranians who disappeared in
Christian-held Lebanon in 1982/
A Foreign Office spokesman de-
scribed the 90-minute meeting as
"useful." Nothing Velayati said pub-
licly suggested imminent release of
British or other hostages
despite
renewed speculatiomthat Ayatollah
Ruhollah
Khomeini
might
make
such a gesture to mark his decade
in power in Tehran.
Velayati’s
sudden
appearance
here came to light when a Londonr
datelined
dispatch
from
IRNA,
Iran's
official news
agency,
an-
nounced that while flying from Teh-
ran to Madrid, he "was forced by
bad weather to break his journey."
He was scheduled to confer with
Spanish
officials
before
attending
U.N. discussions in New York about
the
stalled implementation
of the
Aug. 20 cease-fire
in the Persian
Gulf war. The IRNA dispatch did
not say where the "bad weather"
occurred,
but
meteorologists - Re-
ported
clear weather
in both the
British and Spanish capitals.
Sources here said Howe told his
visitor Britain was convinced ;that
the three Iranians who Tehran in-
sists are still alive were killed soon
after their abduction.
Howe expressed concern about
the fate of journalist Roger Cooper,
a longtime British resident of Iran
detained
in Tehran
in 1986.
Iran
recently has threatened to put him
on trial as a spy.
Britain reopened its Tehran em-
bassy in December after an eight-
year break. But after Velayati met
with William Waldegrave, Howe’s
deputy,
in Paris
last month,
rela-
tions cooled because of the Thatch-
er
government’s
insistence
that
progress depended oo^the release
of Cooper and
the three Britons
field in Lebanon by the proJranian
Hezbollah faction.
They
are
Terry
Waite,
the
Church of England emissary seized
two years ago; journalist John Mc-
Carthy and teacher Brian Keenan.
Veiayati’s
visit
also
renewed
speculation that Kuwait might now
be willing to drop its refusal to re-
lease any of the 16 men convicted
of attacks against Kuwaiti oil inso-
lations and the U.S. and French em-
bassies in December 1984.
>
Sources following the situation of
the
western
hostages
suggested
that Kuwait was considering such a
gesture to thank the United States
for protecting Kuwaiti
oil tankers
during the final year of the Persian
Gulf war. Some of the men held in
Kuwait
are
related
to
prominent*
pro-Iranian Lebanese believed to be
holding western hostages.
Howe stopped in Kuwait during a
gulf tour
last month, and Walde-
grave is expected there shortly.
Iranian Clergy Asked to Defer to Professionals
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
TEHRAN,
Feb. 7—Iran’s
spir-
itual heir-apparent, Ayatollah Hos-
sein Ali Montazeri, today admitted
shortcomings
in
the
10-year-old
Islamic
revolution
and
urged
the
ruling clergy to relinquish more of
their decision-making prerogatives
to qualified professionals.
In a statement carried by the of-
ficial
Iranian news agency IRNA,
Montazeri listed a number of inter-
nal factors including "deficiencies in
religious
thinking
regarding state
administration”
and
"insufficient!
competence of the officials.
"Of course the brave and
revo-l
CPYRGHT
justified in seeing that there is a big
gap between what they have gained
and what they were promised,” he
said in remarks coinciding with the
revolution’s
10th anniversary
cel-
ebrations.
"But
instead
of
disillu-
sionment
and
losing
hope,
one
should discover the real reasons for
lack
of
success
and
think
what
should be done.”
He cited a long
list of shortcom-
ings
that
have
"caused
the most
damage for the revolution,” warning
that
unless
these
are
"redressed
before it gets late, they can no long-
er be compensated."
The defects cited by Montazeri
O&diGb&-FHI)[R0^^
in Tehran.
tremism,
selfishness, monopolism,
group inclinations, injustices, ignor-
ing the people and the genuine val-
ues of the revolution, and the lack
of real power
in the hands of the
people.”
IRNA
identified
Montazeri
as
"Iran’s
designated
future
leader”
and noted
that
this was
his .first
public statement
since
last
July’s
U.N.-sponsored
cease-fire
with
Iraq.
Ayatollah
Ruhollah
Khomeini
pushed for Montazeri's designation
as his successor in 1985. But Kho-
meini’s disciple is known to be fac-
ing strong opposition from powerful
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
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Sftje Kto$fjtttgtott SSntco
X
t- 0
f
WORLD
CPYRGHT
Approved For
I
killed as Shi-ite
,
>ot it out south of Beirut
By Samar Kadi
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Rival mili-
tias battling to dominate Lebanon’s
Shi’ite Moslem community
ex-
changed barrages of mortars, rock-
ets and artillery fire south of Beirut
yesterday, killing at least 53 persons
and wounding 85, police and hospital
officials said.
The latest casualties in fighting
between the pro-Syrian Amal militia
and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah,
which began Dec.
31, brought the
toll to 77 killed and 146 wounded in
the inter-Shi’ite power struggle cen-
tered in Beirut’s southern slums.
Fighting with machine guns and
rockets
spilled
over
into Moslem
\yest Beirut tor. a third day, buTSJF"
ian peacekeeping troops intervened
and
no
casualties
were
reported
there.
' House-to-house fighting was
re-
ported in Iklim A1 Ihfah, 28 miles
south
of
Beirut, where Abou
Ali
Hammoud, a senior Amal militia of-
ficial was
killed with 10 relatives
and bodyguards, police and militia
sources said.
An Amal spokesman accused
Hezbollah of starting the clashes hv
launching an assault on the militia’s
positions around the villages of Kfar
Milki and Kfar Hetta. He said Hez-
bollah fighters used knives and axes
in the assault.
“It was a real massacre
They
took
the people by
surprise,” the
spokesman said. “This will not go
unpunished.”
Police and hospital sources said
53 persons were killed and at least
85 were wounded in the fierce fight-
ing in the cluster of villages. Among
the wounded were a policeman and
three Lebanese Red Cross rescue
Jworkers.
Witnesses said black smoke
bil-
lowed over Kfar Milki, Kfar Hetta,
fend Ain Bouswar where dozens of
heavily armed
militiamen
traded
rockef
5, mortars.and artillery fire. —
Security sources said the militias,
Lighting for dominance of Lebanon’s
t
Shi’ite
community,
stormed
each
ther s positions with grenades and
lortars.
A source said Hezbollah fighters
raptured Amal bases in Kfar Milki
md Kfar Hetta after four hours of
mabated fighting, but an Amal com-
nunique said the militia fighters re-
covered Kfar Hetta and launched a
.otinferaffark fn w-mh.m .w- w.
fttppoo oo7ognoooflooo<i 99otia .
positions in Kfar MilkL
“The
atheists
in Hezbollah
brought in fighters from the Bekaa
Valley
through
Israeli
lines, and
slipped into Kfar Hetta and Kfar
Milki, carrying out the
ugliest of
massacres, killing women, children
and elderly people,” the Amal com-
munique said.
In the Amal-controlled port city
of Tyre,
farther
south,
security
sources said the militia dispatched
300 fighters to back up its forces in
Iklim A1 Tbfah.
Witnesses said Amal cars toured
the
city
as
militiamen
speaking
through
loudspeakers
urged
the
population
to donate blood
to help
wounded militia fighters.
^Pthipft wjffl stOD^heJighting;
the two sides are^r^rmine5^~ge\
done with it until therels a loser and
a winer” the police spokesman said.
“Even if cease-fires are worked out,
the battles are bound to renew in the
absence of an all-out settlement”
.
'Hie feud between Lebanon^ two
mam milita groups began last'April
when Amal evicted Hezbollah from
most of the south in fierce battles
that killed 62 combatants. The fun-
d^mentahsts have since vowed to re-
CPYRGHT
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Approved For Release 2000/08/08
: CIA-RDP96-00789R000400040001-3