Terrorism Many Rumors, One Release

As usual, photographs and press releases preceded the hostage release. First came a picture of two of the four professors abducted 20 months ago from Beirut University College, along with a message that one of the four would be freed. Then came a picture of all four, three of them apparently bidding a smiling farewell to Mithileshwar Singh, 60, an Indian-born business professor who had lived in the U.S. for 18 years before moving to Beirut. Sure enough, shortly after 10 p.m. last Monday his captors dropped off Singh in front of the former Kuwait embassy in southern Beirut. Placed under Syrian guard, he was quickly taken to Damascus and turned over to U.S. Ambassador Edward Djerejian. “The treatment was better than I expected,” said Singh, a diabetic who was examined twice a week by a doctor during his captivity. “But there is no substitute for freedom in this world.”

Singh became the sixth foreign hostage to be set free in Lebanon this year, leaving 13 — including nine Americans — still in captivity. What his release means for the others, however, remains unclear. Singh and his three colleagues have always been regarded as a group apart. They were abducted by an organization calling itself Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, which is not known to have engaged in any other kidnapings. Most of the remaining hostages are believed to be held by factions of the pro-Iranian Shi’ite extremist organization known as Hizballah (Party of God), which has some different goals. Singh’s captors claimed that he was freed in an attempt to win U.S. support for the Palestinian uprising in Israel’s occupied territories, for example, while Hizballah demands the release of 17 convicted terrorists held by Kuwait.

Despite Singh’s American ties, moreover, he remains a citizen of India and may have been something of an embarrassment to his captors. The U.S. State Department at first hoped that at least one more of the academic prisoners would be set free, largely because Syrian officials promised that “an American” would be coming out of Beirut. When none appeared, some State Department hostage experts concluded that no further prisoners are likely to be released until a new Administration comes to power. In Paris former Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr claimed that secret arms-for-hostages negotiations were taking place between Iran and Americans. Secretary of State George Shultz strenuously denied any bargaining at the official level but said that some unauthorized approaches have been made by private parties, whom he invited to “butt out.”

In Britain intelligence officials believe they have identified the man holding Terry Waite, the Anglican envoy kidnaped 20 months ago while trying to negotiate the release of other hostages. He is Imad Mughniyah, Hizballah’s head of security, whose brother-in-law Mustafa Youssef Badreddin is one of the Shi’ite terrorists serving prison terms in Kuwait.

Western diplomats have privately expressed hope that Iran will exert its leverage within Hizballah for further hostage releases, especially now that Tehran is seeking to emerge from diplomatic isolation and establish new ties with the West. But apparently that decision is not entirely to the liking of one high-ranking Iranian, namely Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iranians, he said in a written message last week, must continue to “use their oppressor- burning flames against both the criminal Soviet Union and the world- devouring United States,” looking “neither east nor west” for their future. His tone was hardly that of someone contemplating rapprochement — or gestures designed to win U.S. friendship.