
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990                   TAG: 9003082028
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BEIRUT, LEBANON                                 LENGTH: Medium

TERRORISTS SAY THEY DON'T PLAN TO FREE U.S. HOSTAGES

A pro-Iranian underground group holding two American hostages in Lebanon said Wednesday that it does not intend to release the captives, and it urged attacks on U.S. targets.

The group also accused the United States of planning a military operation to free the 18 Western captives.

The statement was released by the Revolutionary Justice Organization just hours after Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani said he wants the issue of Westerners held in Lebanon resolved. It followed a flurry of news reports that had raised hopes some hostages might be released.

"We tenaciously cling to keeping America's nose in the mud under our feet. There is no intention to release hostages," Revolutionary Justice said in an Arabic-language statement delivered to the independent Beirut newspaper An-Nahar and a Western news agency.

The handwritten statement was accompanied by a black-and-white photograph of hostage Joseph Cicippio of Valley Forge, Pa. Cicippio, acting comptroller of the American University of Beirut, was kidnapped Sept. 12, 1986, in Lebanon.

The group said "suicide strugglers and special operations should be directed" against the United States and its allies.

In the picture, Cicippio, dressed in a striped sweater over a T-shirt, looked straight into the camera. He was without his eyeglasses and had a bushy, grayish beard.

The statement was the first from Revolutionary Justice since Aug. 3, when the group announced it had reversed a decision to kill Cicippio, 59. The execution had been threatened to retaliate for Israel's abduction of a Shiite Moslem cleric from southern Lebanon.

"By monitoring American moves here and there and through planting elements in regional American stations, and after trailing some spies, we have acquired accurate information that an American military operation is imminent against areas where the Americans believe hostages are held," the statement said.

"We call upon all to watch out against this threat and beware and be on the alert against what America is hatching," the communique added.

by CNB