Muslim Group Shows Marine’s ID : Shia Extremist Faction Is Reportedly Loyal to Khomeini

A fundamentalist Muslim group in Lebanon claimed Friday that it is holding a U.S. Marine Corps officer hostage and accompanied its claim with photocopies of two identity cards, each bearing photos and signatures said to be those of the hostage.

A U.N. spokesman said that the documents appear to be copies of genuine identity cards held by Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, 43, of Danville, Ky., who was kidnaped Wednesday while driving in a U.N. convoy near Tyre, Lebanon’s southernmost city.

An earlier claim of responsibility for the abduction of Higgins was made by an unknown group calling itself the Islamic Revolutionary Brigades, but that claim was not accompanied by any proof.

Friday’s claim was made in the name of the self-styled Oppressed of the Earth, which sources in Lebanon identified as a Shia Muslim extremist faction loyal to Iran’s revolutionary leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The claim, delivered to a news agency in Beirut, asserted that Higgins was one of “the biggest spies” operating for the CIA in Lebanon.

Higgins is the head of the U.N. Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO), a 75-man observer group established in 1948 to monitor a truce between Lebanon and Israel. Washington has flatly denied that he has any ties to the CIA.

On Friday, the Pentagon did, however, acknowledge that Higgins was a military aide from June, 1985, to June, 1987, to former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger. “He was a junior military assistant (and) was one of 36 people working in the immediate office of the secretary as an administrative assistant,” Pentagon spokesman Dan Howard said.

U.N. officials said that the spot where Higgins was kidnaped is outside the area where Americans in the truce observer team are normally allowed to patrol but that Higgins felt as chief of the group he had to travel more widely.

Fifteen other American officers serve with UNTSO in Lebanon.

Recalls TWA Hijacking

The name of the group claiming Friday to hold Higgins is similar to that used by the group that hijacked a TWA airliner from Athens in June, 1985, and held the passengers hostage for nearly three weeks. The same group killed three Lebanese Jews in December, 1986.

In its communication Friday, Oppressed of the Earth demanded an end to U.S. intervention in Lebanon, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon and the release of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners from prisons in northern Israel.

The demands were remarkably similar to conditions laid down by the hijackers of the TWA jet, who killed one of their passengers--a U.S. navy diver--during the hijacking.

It was not clear if the abduction of Higgins was related to the trial in West Germany of two men being held in connection with the TWA hijacking and the subsequent seizure of German hostages in Beirut.

CIA Role Charged

“William Higgins, agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, who uses his observer’s work as a cover for his dangerous espionage role, is in the hands of our heroic warriors,” the Friday statement said.

A U.N. spokesman in Naqoura, the headquarters of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, said that roads in the area are closed by U.N. roadblocks during a continuing search for Higgins.

The spokesman said that the mainstream Shia Muslim militia in Lebanon, Amal, is cooperating in the search and has closed off about 300 square miles in the hunt for the missing officer.

“We still assume he’s in the area,” the spokesman said.

In Tyre, Daoud Daoud, the Amal military commander for southern Lebanon, said he is prepared for a military confrontation with the kidnapers but expressed hope for a “quick, happy ending.”

Amal militiamen conducted house-to-house searches in Shia Muslim villages in the area near Tyre in a massive manhunt for the missing Higgins, who is the ninth American now held captive in Lebanon.

There was no progress reported in efforts to free two other U.N. employees who were kidnaped in the area. Two officials of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, a Swede and a Norwegian, were abducted near the southern city of Sidon on Feb. 5.

Their kidnaping was said to be the work of disgruntled employees of UNRWA and not politically motivated.