Canada Relief Chief Kidnaped in S. Lebanon

Gunmen today kidnaped the Canadian administrator of a religious relief agency in south Lebanon hours after the Lebanese manager of the ABC News bureau in Beirut was freed unharmed by his abductors.

Police and Canadian Embassy officials said Robert Burkholder, 30, was kidnaped by gunmen as he headed for work in Nabatiyeh, a Shia Muslim market town about 40 miles south of Beirut.

A Lebanese companion with him was left behind by the gunmen, police said.

Reporters in Nabatiyeh said Burkholder had lived there three years with his wife and three children. They said the Canadian worked as administrator for the South Lebanon Project of the Mennonite Central Committee, a relief and agricultural aid organization based in Akron, Pa.

Nabatiyeh is controlled by Shia militiamen of the dominant Amal movement, plus some radical Hezbollah Shias.

15th Kidnaped Foreigner

Burkholder is the 15th foreigner kidnaped in Lebanon since March, 1984. Seven Americans, four Frenchmen, a Briton, an Iranian and a Kuwaiti have been abducted by Muslim gunmen in West Beirut.

The Lebanese manager of the ABC bureau, Shakib Humaidan, walked into West Beirut’s Commodore Hotel early today. He was kidnaped as he drove to Beirut airport on Saturday.

“I have no idea who took me or why,” Humaidan, 50, said later as he toasted his release with champagne. “I don’t know exactly why they let me go.”

Meanwhile today, Israeli warplanes blasted a guerrilla base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Israeli military sources said.

Lebanese police said at least two civilians were hurt in the attack, Israel’s second air raid in Lebanon in less than a week and the 10th this year. The raid followed the killing of two Israeli soldiers Monday in a guerrilla attack near the village of Majdel Selm in southern Lebanon.