American Hostages to Be Freed This Week, Lebanon Paper Says

American and other Western hostages held by pro-Iranian factions in Lebanon will be released this week, the Ad Diyar newspaper reported Wednesday.

However, the newspaper based in Christian East Beirut does not have a record of accurate reporting on the 11 Western hostages, including six Americans.

Its report came two days after a meeting in Tehran between President Hashemi Rafsanjani and Fathi Shakaki, who was described by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency as “an official from Islamic Jihad.”

Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, which claims to hold two U.S. hostages, demanded that Israel free Shiite Muslim cleric Abdel Karim Obeid, a pro-Iranian activist of Hezbollah, or Party of God. It said his release would be an “encouraging prelude” to the freeing of its captives. Obeid was kidnaped by Israeli troops in south Lebanon in 1989.

Ad Diyar’s front-page report said the six American hostages would be released Friday at an unnamed hotel in Beirut in the presence of Interior Minister Sami Khatib and the commander of Syria’s military intelligence in Lebanon, Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kenaan.

The report cited unnamed sources “close to circles interested in the release of the Western hostages.” It said the other hostages “would probably be released the coming Saturday in the presence of the ambassadors of their respective nations in Lebanon.”

The Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine claims to hold Americans Alann Steen and Jesse Turner. Islamic Jihad, believed to be a separate group, says it has American hostages Terry Anderson and Thomas Sutherland.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said he has “nothing to suggest a hostage release is imminent.”

Israel has offered to swap Obeid and about 300 Shiites for all the Western hostages and Israeli servicemen missing in Lebanon.