HOSTAGES' KIN SAY' DIPLOMACY FAILS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580030-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: July 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580030-4
i i
ARTICLE A~ j-+-
ON ON PA PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
31 July 1985
Hostages' Kin Sa DiplomacY ai
.Shiite Reports No Progress
"My attempts to free the hostages are con-
tinuing on more than one level but I feel I do not
nav
By Nora Roustany
Sc,, 141 0. Tb W...hmgbro Pmt
BEIRUT, July 30-Lebanon's highest Shiite Mos-
lem religious authority. Sheik Mohammed Hussein
Fadlallah, said in an interview today that he has made
efforts to release seven American, and four French-
men being held captive here but that his efforts have
been fruitless. He expressed fears that their fate may
be beyond his control.
Fadlallah, 50. the senior religious figure to Leha-
non's I million Shiites after Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, is also believed by some an.ilvsts to he the
spiritual guide of Hezbollah (Party of God), an extrem-
ist Shiite faction that held several of the Americans
taken hostage in the hijacking in June of the Trans
World Airlines plane.
Fadlallah denies he holds this position or has links
to any faction, although he acknowledges that he has
special influence as a clerical leader. Ile also denies
any link to the hijackers.
In a separate interview, Ghassan Seblani, a high-
ranking official of the Shiite Moslem Amal movement,
which undertook negotiations on behalf of extremist
Shiite activists who hijacked the TWA plane, said
Syria has been embarrassed by delays in freeing
of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel in exchange
for the June 30 release of the American crew and
passengers.
Seblani, a member of Amal's politburo and a
U.S.-educated economist, said that what he
called the piecemeal approach in letting the pris-
oners go and repeated denials by the United
States that any promise has been made for their
release have upset Syria and Amal chief Nabih
Berri.
Israel has freed 400 of a total of 735 Lebanese
and Palestinian prisoners whose release was de-
manded by the hijackers. Fadlallah, who said the
delay was "not surprising," said that what he
called America's failure to deliver on its own
promises did not alter his earlier condemnation
of kidnapings of foreigners and hijackings.
Fadlallah made a written
_ppeal for the re-
lease of French journalist Jean-Paul Kaufmann
and researcher urat st mont , ras-
ing them as Orientalists and men of letters.
"I have interfered with al my strength to ob-
tain the release of the American journalist As-
social ress corre n ent Terry n erson
and u ann, w o is ewis , ut ave not
come to any positive re t Fadlal
sad ,
s akin at his home In Bir Abed, where he es-
caged a car bomb assassination attempt ast
March 8.
e ttte capabilities to arnve a_ t~ositive conclu-
sions," he said. "The matter is much deeper than
ima 'ne."
Asked what the obstacles were, Fadlallah sug-
est at the fate of the t na westerners
was lin to intelligence activities and in t
hands of countries he would not name.
e oblem o ki ins in a anon is part
of a war of intelli ence services on the one an
and it is a so tantamount to messages and sij
between this an tat state see ing to pressure.
certain sides, he said.
This appeared to be an indirect reference to
Syria, the major player in the Lebanese arena.
Fadlallah agreed that Syria could have a major
role in getting the kidnap victims released, but
he ;warned that the "process will not be easy."
Seblani said that there appeared to be no in-
clination to move toward the release of the seven
Americans, kidnaped in Beirut over the last 17
months, "if there is not a sort of payment." He
said Washington should at least take a stand on
Israel's continued detention of 335 Lebanese
prisoners and help in their return home. The
United States has said that Israel's transfer of
the prisoners, captured in Lebanon, from that
country into Israel was a violation of internation-
al law.
"We are not planning to push the United
States into a corner by saying publicly there is a
connection between the hijacking affair and
Atlit," the Israeli prison where the captives are
being held, Seblani said. He used a Lebanese
proverb to illustrate his point: "We don't want to
kill the watchman at the vineyards, we just want
to eat the grapes."
He complained that Israeli patrols are arrest-
ing more Lebanese residents weekly in southern
Lebanon and urged that the United States "take
a stand and do something."
"Any humanitarian action can only help in ac-
celerating the release of the seven Americans,"
Seblani said.
The Amal movement and Berri, its leader,
reportedly received oral guarantees from Syria
last month that Israel would respond to the re-
lease of 39 American hostages from the hijacked
TWA aircraft by freeing 735 prisoners from
Atlit. The United States and Israel have repeat-
edly denied that any such deal was made for the
release of the TWA hostages.
"The promise we got was through the Syr-
ians," Seblani said. Now "they look like they have
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580030-4