The World - News from Jan. 23, 1989
A Shiite Muslim official said that the long, fierce fighting among rival Shiite militias in southern Lebanon was triggered by the abduction of U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins last February. “The seizure of Higgins opened the struggle between Amal and Hezbollah (Party of God),” Abdul Majed Saleh, political chief of the pro-Syrian Amal movement told a rally in the southern city of Tyre. Amal accused pro-Iranian Hezbollah of the kidnaping and mounted a search for Higgins. Amal militiamen stormed several Hezbollah strongholds but failed to find the American. Higgins was on temporary duty as chief of the U.N. truce-monitoring force in Lebanon when he was kidnaped.
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