Muslim Tells Hopes for Hostages

The spiritual leader of a radical Muslim group believed to hold nine Americans hostage in Lebanon has written to those pressing for the captives’ release that he wants to see an end to the “human suffering,” recipients said Tuesday.

A State Department official who has seen the correspondence from Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said, “The letters themselves are unusual, but the content is not.”

The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Fadlallah has made several, apparently contradictory, pronouncements about the hostages and that officials are “not sure how much influence (Fadlallah) has personally” over the kidnapers.

Fadlallah, 53, is the spiritual leader of Hezbollah (Party of God), an umbrella group of pro-Iranian Muslim Shiites. Elements within the Lebanese group are thought to control the American hostages, U.S. officials say, but Fadlallah disavows any responsibility.

Also Tuesday, the wives of three hostages--who were all professors at Beirut University College--appealed for the release of their husbands as the third year in captivity began. The three are Alann Steen of Boston, Robert Polhill of New York and Jesse Turner of Boise, Ida.

Fadlallah’s written statements, in Arabic, came in response to letters sent to him by Peggy Say, the sister of hostage Terry Anderson; the Journalists Committee to Free Terry Anderson; the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and Ray Barnett, the head of Friends in the West and Ambassadors of Aid, two humanitarian groups in Seattle, Wash.

To one group, Fadlallah wrote, “I have tried several times to intervene to find a solution . . . but my efforts failed because they were complicated by factors at the international level.”