French TV Man Kidnaped, Lebanese Colonel Killed

A French television cameraman was reported kidnaped in West Beirut, and a Lebanese army colonel was murdered in the Christian eastern sector today as tension mounted between soldiers and militiamen.

A French Embassy spokesman said Jean-Marc Sroussi, about 40, was snatched Sunday as he entered the mainly Muslim western sector by car from the east.

Local reports said that Sroussi’s Christian Syrian assistant, Fuad Suleiman, had been abducted last week and that Sroussi was crossing the “Green Line” between the two sectors to try to learn his whereabouts.

Sroussi is a free-lance cameraman believed to have worked in Beirut for several television networks, including the French channel Antenne-2.

Amal Denies Role

The Shia Muslim Amal militia launched a massive hunt for Sroussi, whose abduction took place in an area largely controlled by Amal.

“Orders have gone out to all our posts and checkpoints to look for him,” militia sources said, adding that Amal fighters had nothing to do with the kidnaping.

Last March a four-man Antenne-2 crew was seized in West Beirut by a group calling itself the “Revolutionary Justice Organization.” Two of the men were freed in June.

Nine French nationals are now among at least 20 foreigners missing and believed kidnaped in Lebanon.

Tension Rising

In East Beirut, tension rose sharply between the Christian Lebanese Forces militia and regular army soldiers after the army intervened in a weekend battle between Christians in which as many as 62 people died.

In an apparently related incident, gunmen this morning shot and killed a senior Christian officer as he lay in bed in his East Beirut home.

A senior Lebanese Forces official said the murder of Col. Khalil Kanaan, 56-year-old commander of the 5th Brigade, was part of a plot to destabilize Christian areas of the nation.

“We had very good links with the officer, and the killing has been made to look as if we were involved,” he said.