PLO Rings House Where Kidnapers Hold U.N. Workers

PLO guerrillas Sunday surrounded a house where kidnapers are holding two Scandinavian U.N. employees, and PLO chief Yasser Arafat has ordered that the hostages be freed.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Sidon commander, Anwar Madi, announced the order in a statement issued in this southern Lebanese port city and said his guerrillas might use force to release the two captives.

“We shall try to gain their freedom with peaceful means. But if this proves ineffective, we shall resort to other means,” Madi told reporters. “We expect they will be free in 48 hours.”

Sources close to Madi said the two captives--U.N. Relief and Works Agency employees Jan Stening, 44, of Sweden, and William Jorgensen, 58, of Norway--were being held in a house that has been encircled by PLO guerrillas near Sidon’s Ein el Hilwa refugee camp.

“We have clear orders from Arafat to storm the hide-out if the captors fail to free the two captives peacefully,” said one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Stening and Jorgensen were traveling in an UNRWA car from their base in the southern Lebanese port of Tyre to Beirut on Friday when they were intercepted and kidnaped by masked gunmen on Sidon’s southern outskirts.

Madi said the kidnapers are “suspicious, unruly elements who do not belong to any organized Palestinian group. They are in a location that is geographically under our control.”

“Abu Ammar has ordered battlefield guerrillas to recover and release soonest the two kidnaped UNRWA officials. This will be done,” Madi said, using Arafat’s nom de guerre.

Arafat’s mainstream Fatah guerrilla faction of the PLO and UNRWA’s security apparatus have set up a “joint operations room” at the Ein el Hilwa camp to oversee the release operation, Madi said.

The UNRWA side is represented by John Carolan, 44, of Ireland, protective services and communications officer, and Milan Trojanovic, 27, of Yugoslavia, assistant administrative officer of the security apparatus, Madi said.

Members of the joint team later met for three hours with representatives of various Palestinian guerrilla factions.