Shias Threaten U.S. Hostages Still Held; Shultz Stands Firm

Radical Shia Muslims, reacting to U.S. plans to close Lebanon’s airport after the hijacking of a TWA jet, today threatened seven Americans still in captivity.

Islamic Jihad, a shadowy group believed made up of Shias loyal to Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, warned in a communique that seven Americans abducted since March, 1984, “will face a black fate” if the United States attacks Lebanon.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz later indicated that the United States will press its efforts to close Beirut airport despite the threat. Saying “we must think not only about the present, but . . . about the future,” he added: “That place has become a genuine menace.”

The Islamic Jihad communique was delivered to the News of Lebanon, a privately owned local news agency, and telephoned by anonymous callers to two private Beirut radio stations.

‘Clown Ronald Reagan’

The communique said:

“We wish to emphasize to the American Administration and its President, clown Ronald Reagan, that it will shoulder the full responsibility if it attempts directly or through Israel any aggression against the oppressed in Lebanon.

“For the second time we emphasize that seven Americans with us will face a black fate if the American Administration commits any foolhardiness against our people.”

It was the second Islamic Jihad threat in as many days. In a statement delivered to a Western news agency Tuesday, the organization said it will “chase the Americans and strike at their interests in Lebanon, the Arab world and across the world.”

The latest Lebanese government denunciation of the Reagan Administration came today from Salim Hoss, minister of education and labor.

Measures ‘a Crime’

“The American measures to isolate Lebanon and Beirut airport are a crime to say the least,” Hoss said in a statement broadcast by Lebanon’s state radio.

“If there was just a shadow of justice in the world, Lebanon would have had the United States behind bars, standing trial for the massive arms supplies with which Israel destroyed Lebanon and its people,” said Hoss, a Sunni Muslim economist educated in the United States.

Indeed, Shia leader Nabih Berri said today that he wants Lebanon to sue the United States at the World Court in The Hague over its moves to isolate Beirut airport.

Sources close to Berri also said neither he nor his Amal militia is concerned with efforts to gain freedom for the seven kidnaped Americans. “We are not mediators and we are not prepared to mediate,” the sources said.

Charges Betrayal

Berri, who is also the government’s justice minister, accused Washington of betraying pledges he said it made to secure the release of 39 American hostages on Sunday.

“What the United States has done is a betrayal of its commitments, an encouragement to violence and an encroachment on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security,” Berri told reporters. He said he will try to persuade the government to file a suit in the World Court.

The day before the TWA hostages’ release, Washington issued a statement declaring U.S. support for “Lebanon, its government, its stability and security,” but the next day Reagan announced legal and diplomatic moves to put the airport off limits.