Islamic Jihad Vows to Kill Hostages if U.S. Attempts to Rescue Them

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

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

The group, whose name means Islamic Holy War, did not explain why it chose this time to issue a warning about a rescue attempt.

Its threat coincided with a statement by another Shia Muslim group claiming it had kidnaped an “agent of the Iraqi secret service” in Cyprus and offering to exchange him in Beirut for two Iraqi Shias deported from France.

Other Kidnap Victims

In addition to Jacobsen, director of the American University Hospital, Americans missing in Lebanon are Terry A. Anderson, 38, of Lorain, Ohio, chief Middle East correspondent of the Associated Press; Thomas Sutherland, 55, of Fort Collins, Colo., acting dean of agriculture at the university, and William Buckley, of Medford, Mass., a U.S. Embassy political officer. Islamic Jihad claimed last October that it had killed Buckley, then 57, but his body has not been found.

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

The statement delivered Thursday was similar in language to previous ones issued by Islamic Jihad.

“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,” it said.

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

‘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 to reveal the fate of the hostages we hold shall fail.”

Shia zealots customarily refer to the United States as “the Great Satan.”

“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,” Islamic Jihad said. “Pardoned is the one who forewarned.”

Third in Series

It was the third statement from Islamic Jihad since Jenco’s release, each accompanied by a photo of Jacobsen. There was no way of dating the latest picture.