Frenchman, 85, and University Professor Seized in West Beirut

Kidnapers struck twice Wednesday in Muslim West Beirut, seizing a retired French auto dealer and a Lebanese Christian professor at American University of Beirut, whose staff has been a frequent target.

Police said two gunmen in militia uniforms intercepted Camille Sontag and his wife, Blanche, both 85, as they drove on the crowded seaside Ein Mreisseh boulevard at 8:30 a.m.

One held a gun to Mrs. Sontag’s head and the other pulled her husband from his car, police said. The gunmen then forced Sontag into a waiting taxi and sped away while his wife screamed for help. Police said none of the dozens of witnesses dared to interfere.

An hour earlier and three blocks away, two or three gunmen intercepted Nabil Matar during his regular morning stroll from his home to the nearby American University campus and forced him into a car.

Militia Aid Sought

Matar, 36, is an associate professor of cultural studies at the university. The school said it notified the Lebanese government and leaders of the various militias and asked their help. Major militia leaders such as Walid Jumblatt of the Druze and Nabih Berri of the Shia Muslim faction Amal have spoken publicly against the wave of terror.

No group has claimed responsibility for either abduction. An investigating officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was no indication that the kidnapings were related.

American University traditionally has been one of the most prestigious schools in the Middle East, and many of the Arab world’s elite have earned degrees there, but it has been plagued by abduction and murder in the last two years.

Approximately 100 foreigners were on its faculty and staff, but fewer than a dozen remain. Many holdouts left after the bodies of a kidnaped American librarian from the university and two British teachers were found in the mountains east of Beirut on April 17.

A note found near the bodies said they were killed in retaliation for the British-supported U.S. air raids on Tripoli and Benghazi two days earlier. About 100 Westerners were evacuated from Beirut’s Muslim sector to the Christian eastern sector after the killings.

Planning Return to France

The Sontags came to Beirut with the French army in 1939 and remained. Blanche Sontag said her husband recently retired as chief representative of the French auto maker Peugeot, a post he had held since 1947. She said they had planned to move back to France next week.

“We loved this country,” she said. “We’ve always loved it, because of the sunny weather and amiable people. But this has changed. We don’t like it any more.” She said her family origins were Lebanese and she holds dual citizenship.

Sontag is the ninth French citizen abducted in West Beirut since March, 1985. Responsibility for four of the earlier kidnapings was claimed by Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War), believed to be a group of Shia Muslim zealots loyal to Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The other four, members of a television crew, were kidnaped March 8. A previously unknown group called the Revolutionary Justice Organization claimed responsibility for their abductions.

Slaying Claims

Islamic Jihad said in March that it had killed one of its French hostages, research analyst Michel Seurat, 37, in retaliation for France’s deportation of two pro-Iranian Iraqi dissidents. No body has been found.

Islamic Jihad also claims to hold four American hostages and said it killed a fifth in retaliation for alleged U.S. complicity in Israel’s air attack on the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunisia last Oct. 1. The group said Oct. 4 that it “executed” U.S. Embassy political officer William Buckley, 57, who was kidnaped March 16, 1984. Again, no body was found.

In addition to the Americans and Frenchmen, a Briton, South Korean, Italian and Irishman are missing in Lebanon.