Islamic Jihad Repeats Offer to Trade U.S. Hostages for 17 Jailed Muslims

Pro-Iranian kidnapers holding at least two American hostages reiterated, in a statement released Tuesday, their offer to trade their captives for 17 Shiite Muslims jailed in Kuwait.

The typewritten statement from Islamic Jihad, or Islamic Holy War, was delivered to the offices of the independent newspaper Al Nahar and a Western news agency.

Islamic Jihad said it issued the statement to mark the anniversary of the Oct. 23, 1983, car bombings of the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut and the headquarters of French paratroopers. The attacks, for which Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, killed 241 American servicemen and 58 French soldiers.

The text was accompanied by a photograph showing a clean-shaven, smiling Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, the longest held of the 18 Western hostages in Lebanon. Anderson, 42, was kidnaped March 16, 1985. Islamic Jihad also holds Thomas Sutherland, 58, of Ft. Collins, Colo., who was acting dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut when he was abducted June 9, 1985.

The Shiite Muslims are jailed in Kuwait on terrorist charges stemming from the December, 1983, bombings there of the U.S. and French embassies in which six people died. Kuwait has refused previous demands to release the prisoners.