Word: jihad
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...effort started to pick up in August, when British journalist John McCarthy was released. He was carrying a message from Islamic Jihad: if Israel would release more than 300 Arab detainees, including Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid, a Shi'ite Muslim cleric kidnapped by Israeli commandos in 1989, the group would be willing to free its remaining captives. Using Picco as a go-between, the two sides began exchanging information about the condition of their prisoners...
While the contours of the deal seemed clear, the mechanics posed nettlesome questions. Among the most vexing was a condition contained in the letter former British hostage John McCarthy brought to Perez de Cuellar from Islamic Jihad, a fundamentalist Shi'ite faction, operating under the banner of the pro-Iranian Hizballah, that holds several Westerners. It called for "the release of our freedom fighters from prisons in occupied Palestine and Europe." To whom that referred was anybody's guess -- and for whom Islamic Jihad presumed to speak was no more apparent. Was this a bargaining point or an implacable demand...
Several other potential stumbling blocks exist. Islamic Jihad's call for "the release of all detainees around the world," if serious, may bring at least seven other European countries into the negotiations. Five Arab terrorists are held in Britain, two in France, two in Greece, five in Italy, three in Spain, three in Sweden and one in Switzerland. Most of these men have been convicted of crimes; the others are awaiting trial for acts ranging from the importation of explosives to the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Perez de Cuellar signaled that the release...
...Antoine Lahd, commander of the South Lebanon Army militia, weighed in with a requirement that nine of his militiamen held by Hizballah be released or accounted for. Lahd holds the keys to El Khiam prison in southern Lebanon, where Israel detains 350 of the Shi'ites sought by Islamic Jihad -- though Israel would probably make him unlock the door if its soldiers are recovered. Damascus has also put in a bid for the release of an unspecified number of Syrian soldiers it claims were detained by Israel in the Golan Heights...
...freedom of other hostages when he was kidnapped in January 1987. British diplomats and friends in Lebanon had warned him not to return, saying the situation was too dangerous. Waite ignored them. He vanished while waiting in a go-between's home to meet representatives of Islamic Jihad. For years no faction claimed to be holding him, and nothing was heard of him. Many Western officials privately concluded he had been killed, possibly because he was suspected of working with the Reagan Administration in the arms-for-hostages swap with Iran...