Don’t Give an Inch, Kidnapers of Western Hostages Are Urged

A leading pro-Iranian Lebanese cleric urged kidnapers of Western hostages Monday to stick to their demands.

“We call on those who detain the Western prisoners under the name of Islamic groups to resist and not to go back on any demand even if death reaches everyone,” Sheik Subhi Tufeili, a senior official of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God) group, told crowds gathered for the major Shia Muslim festival of Ashura.

It was not clear whether Tufeili was referring to the deaths of the hostages or the kidnapers.

Thousands of Hezbollah members, including at least 1,000 Iranians, paraded in the streets of this eastern Bekaa Valley town.

Ashura, the major festival of mourning in the Shia religious calendar, marks the 7th-Century martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

Slashing With Razors

In the largely Shia southern slums of Beirut, crowds of the faithful slashed their heads with razors or beat themselves with swords, axes or iron bars as they re-enacted the death of Hussein.

Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the sect’s most influential cleric in Lebanon and the reputed spiritual guide of Hezbollah, delivered a sermon to mark the anniversary.

Fadlallah spoke in the air-conditioned Bir el Abed Mosque. The hostages, who include nine Americans, are believed by some to be held in Hezbollah’s Hay Madi barracks, about 10 blocks from the mosque.

Fadlallah omitted his habitual references to foreign hostages but accused the United States and Europe of trying to snatch “our natural resources and then claim them as theirs.”

“When we say ‘Death to America,’ we mean death to the aggressive policy of America, death to the colonial policy of America and not death to the people of America,” Fadlallah said.

“We are open to the American people, mostly to the oppressed blacks who are being treated as second-class citizens,” he added.