Israeli Unit Tries to Locate Kidnaped Marine

An Israeli army unit with five tanks and an armored personnel carrier raided the Lebanese village of Beit es Siyad on Sunday in an apparent effort to locate kidnaped U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, security sources in the area said.

The Israelis rounded up three members of the Shia Muslim extremist group Hezbollah (Party of God) before returning to their base inside Israel, the sources said.

The move came less than a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci said that Israel had offered to help in the search for the missing Marine officer.

U.N. troops, meanwhile, used police dogs as they escalated their search for Higgins, who was kidnaped Wednesday in southern Lebanon, U.N. sources said.

U.N. Soldiers Comb Hills

More than 50 soldiers from the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon combed the hills and groves of Rmadiye, Ein Baal and Aitat near the area where Higgins was abducted, the sources said.

Higgins, 43, head of a U.N. Truce Supervisory Organization unit, was abducted by unidentified gunmen as he was leaving the southern port city of Tyre for the U.N. force’s headquarters in the border village of Naqoura.

In Tyre, the Shia Muslim group Amal issued aharsh warning Sunday against a Muslim fundamentalist group that has claimed responsibility for Higgins’ abduction.

“Those who executed and planned the abduction, and whom we know very well, must assume their responsibilities,” the Amal leadership in southern Lebanon said.

The clandestine fundamentalist group Organization of the Oppressed on Earth claimed responsibility Friday for kidnaping Higgins, saying he was a CIA spy.

Warning to U.S., Israel

The group, which has been linked to the radical pro-Iranian group Hezbollah, said Higgins would be released only after the United States stops intervening in the Middle East and Israel withdraws from Lebanon and releases the Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners it holds.

Hezbollah in turn issued a warning of its own, saying the United States should not attempt any military retaliation or operation to save the Marine.

“Threats and outcries from Washington have been increasing since the abduction of the American officer, Higgins, in southern Lebanon,” Hezbollah said in a statement released in Beirut.

“We warn the American Administration against making any stupid action against our people. . . . America is not allowed back in this country,” said Hezbollah, which contests Amal’s control of southern Lebanon.