Approved For Release 2000/08/08
: CIA-RDP96-00789R000401 020004-1
'-t
J“
i*
,
s^nupuoD
Washington Post
P/<Pf £
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN AHA
Hostages’ Release Divides Hezbollah
T
he latest intelligence reports coming across
President Bush’s desk give him bad news
about the American hostages in Lebanon. It is
unlikely that the remaining six will be freed this
year.
The recent release of two hostages has set off a
volatile feud—even gun battles—between factions
of Hezbollah, the umbrella organization that
tenuously controls the grab bag of greedy,
egotistical terrorists who hold the hostages.
The fighting is between the groups that follow
Iranian hard-liner Ali Akbar Mohtashemi and those
that line up behind the more flexible Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s president. Rafsanjani
wants to use the hostages to get the United States
to return to Iran more than $1 billion in frozen
assets. He also hopes the hostages can be a
bartering chip in Iran’s bid to join the community of
civilized nations.
But Mohtashemi’s reporters are die-hard
fundamentalists who would rather live in Hell than
coexist peacefully with the “Great Satan” on earth.
Rafsanjani thought he had control of the
terrorists when he was able to install his
functionary. Sheik Subhi Tufeyli, as the
secretary-general of Hezbollah in a secret
“election” last December. Rafsanjani also had
Hezbollah’s spiritual leader. Sheik Fadlallah, in his
court. But Tufeyli has been unable to win the
support of all Hezbollah factions.
It will be difficult for him to get Hezbollah to free
any more Americans if the United States, Israel
and Kuwait remain unwilling to meet the major
demands of the terrorists, according to Central
Intelligence Agency reports.
The CIA has told Bush that the hostages’ fate is
in the hands of a secret seven-man council inside
Hezbollah called the Tabbishi. Even the CIA
doesn’t know the names of five of the seven.
Bush has been told that the Tabbishi are skittish
about publicity and have no qualms about their
mission. They call themselves “the hit men.”
The top two Tabbishi are linked to the oldest
Hezbollah faction, the Islamic Jihad. Its titular
leader is Hussein Musawi, a
schoolteacher-tumed-terrorist who orchestrated
the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine
barracks in Beirut in 1983.
Islamic Jihad holds hostages Terry Anderson and
Thomas Sutherland. The group’s chief demand is
the release of 15 fellow terrorists and relatives
from Kuwaiti jails, but Kuwait has refused.
Other cells of Hezbollah keep their hostages as
insurance against an attack by Israel or the United
States, or as bartering chips to get Lebanese and
Palestinian prisoners out of Israeli jails.
None of that helps Rafsanjani, who simply wants
respect and money—Iran's frozen assets and some
foreign aid to rebuild the country after the
eight-year war with Iraq. Those clear-cut demands
are no match for the ego, greed and lust for power
that drives Hezbollah and the Tabbishi.
The Tabbishi can’t even agree on who is in charge.
The No. 2 man is itching to oust the No. 1 man.
According to one intelligence report, only their
wives’ close friendship keeps him from doinc it.
i
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
: CIA-RDP96-00789R000401 020004-1