The World

Islamic Jihad, a Shia Muslim fundamentalist group that has claimed responsibility for kidnaping four Americans still missing in Lebanon, denied that it has abducted American educator Frank Herbert Reed and urged “the real kidnapers” to come forward. “We did not kidnap the American . . . although we support all the forces that seek to chop off the hands of international arrogance and its spies in the region,” the group said in a typewritten statement in Arabic. Four gunmen abducted Reed, 53, director of the private Lebanese International School, on Tuesday.