Don’t Release Hostages, Shiite Leader Urges

A Shiite Muslim leader today accused the United States of responding to the release of an American hostage with ill will and urged pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim militants to continue holding their captives.

Hussein Musawi, believed to have played a key role in Robert Polhill’s release Sunday, complained that a U.S. House resolution Tuesday endorsing a united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital complicates efforts to release another American hostage.

“The Moslems in Lebanon offered a rose only to get a stone thrown on them,” Musawi told a group of visiting Western journalists.

He said the United States’ intentions were demonstrated by the congressional resolution, which is non-binding. Musawi said the hostage-holders have been repeatedly urged to prove good will by freeing a captive.

“So they did and released Polhill,” he said.

“But upon that release we heard the news of the House of Representatives resolution on Jerusalem. If every release will be matched by such a monumental ill-intentioned American response, why then should any hostage be freed?

“We hope that no other hostage will be released,” said Musawi, reputed mentor of Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, the group that held Polhill and continues to hold two other American educators.

Asked about persistent reports that a second American hostage would be released during Eid al-Fitr, the three-day feast that begins Thursday to mark the end of Islam’s holy fasting month of Ramadan, Musawi said:

“There is plenty of talk about such a move. I don’t think Eid al-Fitr means anything to the Americans, and I don’t think there’s an atmosphere of such an early release.”