Invasion Could Give Iraq Key to Ending Hostage Crisis

The Iraqi blitzkrieg of neighboring Kuwait, a crushing jolt to intra-Arab relations, could incidentally affect one of the Middle East’s most agonizing dramas, the fate of the foreign hostages in Lebanon.

By seizing power in Kuwait city, the Iraqi military presumably fell heir to a number of Kuwaiti-held prisoners who are a key element of the hostage issue.

The 15 prisoners are Shiite Muslim militants who were imprisoned in Kuwait for various terrorist acts including bomb attacks on the U.S. and French embassies in December, 1983. The six car bombings left six people dead and dozens wounded. The prisoners--two others were released in February, 1989, after serving their five-year sentences--are a mixture of nationalities, mostly Iraqi and Lebanese. At least one of the Lebanese is related to Lebanon’s notorious Mughniyah clan.

The Mughniyahs and another family, the Hamadis, form the core of the militant factions of Hezbollah (Party of God), the Lebanese Shiite organization held responsible by Western intelligence for the wave of kidnapings that began in Beirut in 1984. The demands of the kidnapers almost invariably called for the release of the Kuwaiti prisoners.

In Washington, U.S. officials said they had not been able to determine whether the Shiite prisoners are now under the control of Iraq and whether they have been taken to Baghdad. The officials said they are seeking information through several channels.

It is not clear that Iraqi control of the prisoners would improve their prospects of release and any consequent change in the stalemate over American hostages.

While Kuwait has turned aside all overtures to release or trade the prisoners, analysts said there seems to be little reason to believe that the Baghdad government would take a softer position. Iran, a non-Arab and Shiite nation, would welcome such a move. But Iraq remains hostile to Iran and has taken brutal steps to suppress the Shiite population within its own borders.

Of a possible break in the deadlock over the American hostages, Estelle Ronneburg, mother of hostage Jesse Turner, expressed mixed feelings. “I’m hoping so, but I wouldn’t want it to be at the expense of the people of Kuwait,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Boise, Ida.

Thomas Cicippio, brother of hostage Joseph J. Cicippio, said from his home in Norristown, Pa., that he “had high hopes that something might break this month” but is not optimistic that this is the hoped-for development.

The presumed fall of the prisoners into Iraqi hands comes on the heels of another significant development potentially affecting the foreign hostages in Lebanon, who include six Americans. A week ago, the French government freed a Lebanese guerrilla, Anis Naccache, who had been sentenced for killing two people in a failed attempt to assassinate former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar in Paris in 1980.

The Iranian government has long demanded freedom for Naccache, and his release was interpreted as a French move to break through the hostage crisis.

Iranian leaders have influence with Hezbollah and were credited with helping win the release of American hostages Robert Polhill and Frank H. Reed in April.

But whether the release of Naccache and the Iraqi control of the Kuwait prisoners might lead to additional hostage releases is uncertain, particularly in the case of the Kuwait 15.

Would Iraq’s Saddam Hussein free them, triggering movement on the hostage drama? Arguments can be made in either direction:

In the tangled Lebanese equation, Iraq cast its lot with the Christian forces, sending arms to renegade Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun in last year’s struggle with the occupying Syrian army in Lebanon. To do a favor for the anti-Aoun Hezbollah would make little political sense.

For the record, Iraq has maintained that it opposes hostage-taking--although some political observers in Britain insist that the Iranian-born journalist Farzad Bazoft, who was executed by Iraq on spy charges while reporting for a British newspaper, was little more than an Iraqi hostage.

On the other hand, Hussein might seek to cleanse his brutish reputation by releasing the prisoners and claiming credit for any resultant freeing of the foreign hostages in Beirut. He recently freed a British nurse who was jailed as an accomplice of Bazoft, ostensibly on a plea for clemency from Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda, who declared in turn that Hussein was a misunderstood man.

Analysts of Hussein’s actions, however, insist that his every move is carefully considered. And while the hostages remain an emotional issue, Hussein is now playing for major stakes in Arab power. Release of the Kuwait prisoners would likely be read as a cynical attempt to erase the stain of the invasion.

Times staff writers Don Shannon and Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this article.