Kuwait Embassy Attache Seized in Beirut

The press attache at the Kuwaiti Embassy has been kidnaped by unidentified gunmen in Muslim-controlled West Beirut, sources close to his family said Saturday.

Wajed Doumani, a 54-year-old Lebanese citizen, was seized in the Ras Beirut neighborhood Thursday, and intensive contacts have been under way to secure his release, the sources said, adding that the abduction was kept secret for two days.

Doumani’s abduction is the latest in a spate of kidnapings in the city’s western sector. Seven Americans, four Frenchmen, one Briton and an Iranian working for a French photo agency are still missing.

Doumani’s son, Ahmed, said he has contacted the kidnapers and that they apparently think that Doumani is from Kuwait. The son said the family believes that Doumani will be released when his abductors confirm his Lebanese nationality.

The identity of Doumani’s abductors was not clear, but a shadowy pro-Iranian extremist group, Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War), has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks on Kuwaiti targets, including an attempt on the life of the ruler of the small Persian Gulf country. It also claims to be holding the seven missing Americans and four Frenchmen.

Islamic Jihad is demanding freedom for 17 men jailed in Kuwait for bombing U.S., French and Kuwaiti targets in December, 1983.

News of the abduction came as Lebanese Muslim leaders delayed implementing a new Syrian-mediated peace plan until about 35 observers arrive from Damascus, the capital of neighboring Syria.

The observers are mainly army officers, and their arrival in Beirut is expected today, said government sources requesting anonymity.

The Syrians are the main power brokers in Lebanon since the collapse last year of U.S. peacemaking efforts in the decade-old Lebanese conflict.

The object of the plan is to end Muslim militias’ control of West Beirut and the international airport, which has been boycotted by the United States following the June 14 hijacking of a TWA jetliner to Beirut.

The plan, as outlined during a Syrian-sponsored conference of Lebanese Muslim leaders in Damascus, calls for closing all militia offices in West Beirut; redeploying Lebanese army troops along the Green Line dividing Beirut’s Muslim and Christian sectors, and creating a 300- to 400-member elite army unit to help police enforce the law.