LEBANON: AMAL AND THE HIGGINS KIDNAPPING

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06046945
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2022
• Case Number: F-2020-01608
• Publication Date: February 25, 1988

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DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
25 February 1988
LEBANON: AMAL AND THE HIGGINS KIDNAPPING
Summary
Amal's efforts in Southern Lebanon to locate LTC Higgins have been earnest,
despite friction between pro-Iranian members and loyalists of local Amal strong-
man Daud Daud. If Higgins is still in the south, as we suspect he is, Amal proba-
bly has the best chance of any group to locate him. Should Higgins be moved out
of southern Lebanon, we believe there is virtually no chance that Amal will ob-
tain useful information on his whereabouts. Higgins' continuing captivity would
represent a damaging blow to the prestige of Amal and Daud Daud and would
bolster perceptions that Hizballah was eclipsing Amal.
This memorandum was prepared by Arab-Israeli Division, Office of Near
Eastern and South Asian Analysis. Comments and queries may be directed to
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Since LTC Higgins' abduction on 17 Khomeini boosts the radical fundamental-
February, numerous reliable reports have indi-
cated that the Shia militia Amal has mounted
an effort to find him. Amal is embarrassed that
its rival, Hizballah (or at least elements of it),
could kidnap a UN official in an area nominally
under Amal's control.
Amal has seriously sought to find
Higgins. More than 100 Hizballah members
have been detained by Amal, Hizballah offices
have been searched, and Amal and Hizballah
members have exchanged gunfire.
Amal's Standing in the South
We believe Amal has significant problems in
the south which constrain its ability to find Hig-
gins and combat Hizballah's influence:
Hizballah's campaign of attacks against
the Israelis and pro-Israeli militias in southern
Lebanon has eroded Amal's popular support.
Amal's reluctance to join in these
attacks casts Amal in the role of Israel's friend
in southern Lebanon.
Hizballah has infiltrated Amal in an effort
to compromise Amal's leadership
Hizballah and Iran provide substantial
financial aid and social welfare programs to the
southern Shia, making it difficult for the gener-
ally pragmatic southerners to side with Amal.
Amal's chronic financial problems have
made it unable to compete effectively with
Hizballah.
Nabih Barn's close identification with Syria
lessens Amal's prestige in the south; Hizballah's
identification with the martyred southern Shia
cleric Shaykh Ragheb Harb, Ayatollah Fadlal-
lah, other southerner clerics, and Ayatollah
ists' prestige.
Despite these problems. we judge that
Amal retains substantial strength in south-
ern Lebanon.
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Amal in the south has inherited the le-
gitimacy of the movements' founder, Imam
Musa Sadr, and can claim to be following r,
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Amal is identified more there with
Daud Daud
2
than with
Nabih arn. some success in
undercutting Hizballah's influence, orches-
trating a massive Amal demonstration in
Tyre in Fall 1986 and publicly destroying
some 8,000 copies of Hizballah's newspa-
per, Al-Ahd, in October 1987.
Amal's support of the UN presence
and its condemnation of Hizballah attacks
against UNIFIL has the backing of most
southern Shia. Hizballah terminated its
attacks against UNIFIL in summer 1986 and
belatedly mobilized a public relations cam-
paign in response to Amal's charges of
Hizballah responsiblity.
Amal's strength in southern Lebanon--
in terms of committed supporters--probably
still exceeds Hizballah's.
Amal can turn to Damascus for sub-
stantial military and political assistance.
Political Constraints to Cooperation with
The United States
We believe that political concerns limit
Amal's ability to cooperate openly with a
US effort to rescue Higgins.
-- Working with US (or worse, Israeli)
forces would open Amal to criticism that it
was working with the main enemy of
Lebanon's Shias. Iran and Hizballah have
already accused Amal of betraying Islam for
the sake of "a US spy and Zionism."
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-- The arrest and possible trial in the
United States of the low level Amal official
Fawaz Yunis on terrorist charges makes many
Amal members hostile to working with the
United States on the Higgins kidnapping.
Amal officials may believe their prestige
would be damaged if they did not demon-
strate their clout by trying to rescue Higgins
themselves.
Outlook
Amal probably is not strong enough to
rescue Higgins independently, but it may be
able to locate him if he remains in southern
Lebanon. The more time that Hizballah has
to orchestrate a campaign against Amal, how-
ever, the more likely Amal searches will
become perfunctory.
If Higgins is moved out of southern Leba-
non, we believe that the chances that Amal
will rescue him or obtain useful information
on his location become almost nil. We be-
lieve that once he is taken to the Bekaa
Valley or West Beirut, pressure from Iran to
have access to Higgins would increase signifi-
cantly, and Iranian policy concerns would in-
fluence Hizballah decisionmaking about how
long and with what degree of security to hold
Higgins. Iran doubtless believes that useful
intelligence could be extracted from Higgins
during a protracted interrogation.
There is a risk that Amal-Hizballah ten-
sion will grow and cause a major showdown.
Both groups--and their Syrian and Iranian pa-
trons--want to avoid a costly confrontation
that would polarize the Shia community,
endanger Syrian-Iranian ties, erode
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pressure on the Israeli security zone in south-
ern Lebanon, and probably not produce a
clear winner. Nonetheless, the situation is
volatile and isolated Amal-Hizballah clashes
already have taken place. A major clash al-
most certainly would endanger Higgins' life
or increase pressure on his captors to move
him out of the south
If Higgins is not released soon, his kidnap-
ping will increasingly represent a Hizballah
political victory over Amal. The initial wave
of support for Amal's efforts to find Higgins
seems to have crested and the Hizballah
sponsored clerical criticism of rescue efforts is
undercutting Amal's prestige.
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