World Notes Terrorism

Father Nicolas Kluiters, a Dutch Jesuit priest who had lived in Lebanon for 20 years, last month appeared to have joined the growing list of Westerners abducted by Islamic fundamentalists. A few days later his car was found, along with a note claiming that he was the captive of a previously unheard-of organization. Last week a farmer in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley stumbled upon the priest's decomposing body at the bottom of a ravine. An autopsy showed that he had been strangled shortly after his capture, and police theorized that the kidnaping was the work of robbers rather than of any known Islamic political group. Father Kluiters was the first kidnap victim to be found dead out of the 17 Westerners, including seven Americans, abducted in Lebanon during the past 14 months. In recent days four non-American captives have been released.

It is assumed in Washington that some of the missing Americans are being held by pro-Iranian Lebanese Shi'ite groups that hope to swap their prisoners for 19 militant Islamic fundamentalists imprisoned in Kuwait. With that in mind, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz recently sent a message through the Swiss government warning Iran that Washington would not be slow to retaliate should an American captive be killed.