BEIRUT AIDE SAYS SYRIA COULD FREE U.S. CAPTIVES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200098-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2011
• Sequence Number: 98
• Publication Date: July 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/31: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200098-4
ON P40
Beirut Aide Says
Syria Could Free
U.S. Captives
By Nora Boustany
Special to The Washington Post
BEIRUT, July 9-A senior Leb-
anese government source said to-
day that there was little doubt Syria
could bring about the release of
seven Americans and five other
westerners being held captive by
Moslem radicals here and that he
expected Syria would obtain their
release "at the right moment."
The statement, by a Lebanese
official who spoke on condition that
he not be identified, came as Leb-
anese Moslem leaders announced a
wide-ranging plan to improve secu-
rity, with Syrian assistance, at Bei-
rut International Airport and in
Moslem west Beirut.
The security plan was announced
today by Lebanese Prime Minister
Rashid Karami after long talks in
Damascus yesterday between Syr-
ian officials and Moslem and Druze
leaders from Lebanon.
It calls for creation of a coordi-
nating committee that would group
Syrian observers. members of the
dominant Druze and Shiite Moslem
militias in the Moslem-controlled
part of Beirut, and representatives
to be appointed by the defense and
prime ministers.
The communique from the Da-
mascus talks also deplored a cam-
paign by the Reagan administration
to arrange an international boycott
of the Beirut airport-focal point of
the Trans World Airlines hijacking
last month. The communique said
this effort showed "the malice of
American ruling quarters" and was
intended to punish Lebanon for ab-
rogating a troop-withdrawal and
security agreement reached with
Israel in 1983.
Security at the airport and an end
to fighting between Moslem and
Druze militias in west Beirut are
seen here as the necessary first
i steps toward restoring peace in
Lebanon, torn by 10 years of civil
war,, Palestinian-Moslem fighting
and violence by radical Moslem fac-
tions-and an Israeli invasion.
The Syrian-engineered security
plan aims broadly at pacification of
WASHINGTON POST
10 July 1985
Beirut and broad political reforms, but the
initial reaction of some Lebanese Christian
leaden was skepticism that it would have any
erect.
Today was the first time any senior Leb-
#nese government figure had spoken openly
#bout the fate of the missing kidnaping vic-
tims--who include seven Americans, some of
them in captivity for more than a year.
The senior Lebanese official, stressing his
conviction that Syria could obtain their release,
laid: "Syria could really deliver them immedi-
ately, but there are some limitations on Syria. I
am sure if Syria put all its weight (on the kid-
ispas] it could locate these individuals, but it
bay require far more involvement than Syria
belie,u is proper at the moment.
I think the Syrian role at present is to en-
me that time individuals are not harmed
ied, at the right moment, to exercise its in-
fluence to make sure they are released."
Syria was instrumental in the release of the
9 American hostages in the TWA hijacking
st month, inchding four who were held sep-
arately by a radial Moslem faction, and this
hss led Damascus to try to capitalize on its in-
fluence for U.S. recognition as a regional
poser.
The Lebanese source said it was not Syrian
policy to have people kidnaped or hijacked,
but he conceded that Syria "has given in the
past lots of elbow room to parties and group-
ings operating in Lebanon. It is part of Syrian
political tactics to permit autonomy of action
to certain of its allies, always with some con-
tours that could be broadly defined or broadly
He added that some people working under
the Syrian umbrella had "gone to extremes"
-an indirect reference to Hezbollah, a mil-
itant Shiite Moslem group that has links to
Iran and is based in the Syrian-controlled
Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Hezbollah is be-
haved by U.S. officials to have engineered the
TWA hijacking.
Most observers here believe that to free
the seven Americans Syria would have to
take military action against the Shiite ex-
tremists holding them. The Islamic Jihad or-
pniaatiion, which says it is holding the Amer-
icans and two Frenchmen, has made their re-
lease contingent on the freeing of Shiite toil-
itants imprisoned by Kuwait for a series of fa-
tal bombings at U.S., French and Kuwaiti fa-
cilities in December 1983. Kuwait has said it
would not bow to pressure.
Syria, in the view of observers here, is
waiting for some kind of signal from Wash-
ington before it decides that a further gesture
toward the United States is timely. Syrian
President Hafez Assad said in a speech last
month that he would do his best to secure the
release of the missing Americans.
The American captives are William Buck-
ley, a U.S. Embassy political officer: the Rev.
Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian minister; the
STAT
Rev. Lawrence Jenco, a Roman Catholic
priest; Terry A. Anderson, The Associated
Press bureau chief; and three officials of the
American University of Beirut-Thomas
Sutherland, Peter Kilburn and David Jacob-
sen.
The security plan for west Beirut and the
airport was drawn up during talks in Damas-
cus yesterday under the chairmanship of Syr-
ian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam.
The communique, issued at dawn in the
Syrian capital, called for a new Lebanese con-
stitution and political reforms that would en-
sure wider representation for Lebanon's
Moslems.
In the only public Lebanese government
comment on the Damascus talks today, Pres-
ident Amin Gemayel told foreign journalists
he could not yet evaluate their outcome.
The senior Lebanese government source
emphasized what he called Syria's pivotal role
and interest in stabilizing Lebanon.
"Syria has nothing but great glory to reap
from success in Lebanon," he said. "If it fails
in' Lebanon, whatever happens in Lebanon
will repeat itself in Syria."
The source stressed the need ! contin-"
tied Syrian presence here, saying the Leba-
nese government "has no one to turn to but
Damascus. The effective force in Lebanon is
Syria."
The source, however, expressed reserva-
tions on the inclusion of officials from the
warring factions in the security coordinating
committee, saying that similar attempts in
the past had failed.
i'he statement issued in Syria rejected tht?
notion of self-security in the embattled Pal-
estink4n refugee camps and outlined a role for
the Lebanese police force for collecting arms
and the disbanding militias with the help o a
special mixed Lebanese Army force.
The government source said a spetla:
Army unit of 5.000 to 10,000 men would be
formed from the various Moslem and Chris-
tian brigades and would be provided with the
necessary backup from Syria.
Following a Syrian-Lebanese summit con-
ference in late May, Gemayel declared that
the 30,000 Syrian troops already deployed in
central and northern Lebanon would give the
Lebanese Army support when the need arises
in implementing security plans in and around
Beirut.
Security conditions in Tripoli, in the north,
Lebanon's second-largest city, deteriorated
sharply during the past two days with the
Sunni Moslem militia of the Islamic Unifica-
tion Movement battling with Syrian-sup-
ported militiamen. The fighting erupted after
the Sunni force, which is close to Yasser
Arafat, criticized the Damascus talks.
In west Beirut, hit-and-run attacks against
Shiite soldiers of the Lebanese Army contin-
ue nightly.
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Two sons of former Christian Phalangist
deputy Edmond Rizk were kidnaped in west
Beirut and four members of a Sunni Moslem
family were shot to death, police said.
The Damascus meeting, which grouped 13
key Sunni, Shiite and Druze leaders and re=
ligious figures, was aimed primarily at defus-
ing tensions between the variog's communi-
ties. The Sunni and Druze minorities are un-
easy with the growing power of Justice 'Min-
ister Nabih Berri's Shiite Amal movement.
Clashes break out routinely between the
Druze Progressive Socialist Party, which now
includes many frustrated Sunni Moslem mil-
itants, and Amal.
The senior government source said the en-
visioned Lebanese Army task force had to
have Syria's political cover to provide it with
the aura of authority to influence and intim-
idate warring factions having connections to
Damascus.
Christian leaders were skeptical of the lat-
est salvation formula, with many saying that
unless results were felt soon they saw no so-
lution "for what is going on in Lebanon."
Former president Camille Chamoun, a
Christian, complained that the planned secu-
rity measures in west Beirut were "an exam-
ple of self-security and political autonomy"
that skirted the Cabinet-which has not met
for months-and the Army command.
a
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