Shia Extremists Warn U.S. Not to Try Hostage Rescue

The Shia Muslim extremist group Islamic Jihad said today it will kill its American hostages if the United States tries to rescue them by force.

A typed statement in Arabic, delivered to a Western news agency in Beirut, was accompanied by a photograph of David Jacobsen, 55, of Huntington Beach.

The group did not explain why it chose this time to issue a warning about a rescue attempt.

In addition to Jacobsen, director of the American University Hospital, Americans missing in Lebanon are Terry Anderson, 38, chief Middle East correspondent of the Associated Press; Thomas Sutherland, 55, acting dean of agriculture at the university, and William Buckley, 57, a U.S. Embassy political officer.

Responsibility Claimed

Islamic Jihad, or Muslim Holy War, said in October that it killed Buckley. No body has been found.

Father Lawrence Jenco, 51, a Roman Catholic priest from Joliet, Ill., was released July 26 after nearly 19 months in captivity.

“We warn everyone who contemplates any military or security foolhardiness to free the hostages, because his as well as their fate would be much worse than the U.S. Marines (killed) on the outskirts of Islamic Beirut,” the statement said.

A suicide driver exploded a truck bomb at U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983, killing 241 men. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for that bombing and one that killed 58 French soldiers.

‘Have No Mercy’

“Let all know we shall have no mercy,” the four-paragraph statement said. “We shall not compromise in that matter and the reckoning will be very severe.

“All plots and intrigues hatched nowadays by local and international hands under the sponsorship of the great Satan (America) to reveal the fate of the hostages we hold shall fail.

“We lay the full responsibility on the ignorant American government, and we call the attention of the families of the hostages that we do not bear the responsibility for the lives of the captives after this statement. Pardoned is the one who forewarned.”

It was the third statement from Islamic Jihad since Jenco’s release, each with a photo of Jacobsen.

There was no way of dating the latest picture.