Prisoners Kuwait

The 17 prisoners in Kuwait whom hijackers of a Kuwait Airways jet are seeking to free are believed to be members of a radical underground Iraqi group called Al Daawa, which has strong ties to Iran. Al Daawa (the Call) is a Muslim fundamentalist group that was barred from political activity in Iraq eight years ago and is now headquartered in Tehran. About 1,000 members of the group, which opposes the Arab Baath Socialist Party regime of Iraq, have been expelled from Iraq. U.S.

Amnesty International said Thursday that a wave of arbitrary arrests, torture and killings has plagued foreign nationals in Kuwait since the withdrawal of Iraqi forces, and the group complained that the government has placed a low priority on ending human rights abuses. At least 10 people have died, and there are documented reports of 40 others who have been tortured, most of them Palestinians, Iraqis, Sudanese and stateless Kuwaitis, the human rights group said.

Pro-Iranian kidnapers charged Friday that 17 fellow Shia Muslims convicted of bombings in Kuwait are being tortured in Kuwaiti jails and threatened to treat Western hostages similarly. Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War), which holds two Americans and three Frenchmen hostage, said one French captive was "gravely ill" but did not identify him. A typewritten statement in Arabic accused Kuwait of "severe psychological and physical torture" of the 17 Shias, who were convicted of bombing the U.S.

CBS News reporter Bob Simon and three crew members who disappeared in the northern Saudi desert last month are being held in Baghdad, the president of CBS News said Friday. Eric Ober confirmed a Cable News Network report that the journalists have been held for two weeks in the Iraqi capital. CBS spokesman Tom Goodman said efforts are under way to secure their release. The crew was reported missing at the Kuwaiti border Jan. 21, four days after the Gulf War started.

A pledge by Kuwait to give "early release" to a handful of Shia Muslim prisoners persuaded the hijackers of a Kuwait Airways Boeing 747 to end their 15-day siege in Algiers on April 20, and free 31 remaining hostages, U.S. officials said Friday. However, the five or six prisoners in question, among 17 imprisoned in Kuwait for bomb attacks on the U.S. and French embassies in 1981, have not been released, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Western hostages held by extremist groups in Lebanon could be freed in a trade involving Shia Muslim prisoners held in Israel and Kuwait, Iranian Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani said in an NBC interview broadcast Thursday. The U.S. State Department promptly rejected the Iranian suggestion, but Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said he will look at the proposal.

The hijackers holding a Kuwaiti jetliner at an airport in northeastern Iran released 32 more passengers early today but warned that the remaining hostages will be in "serious danger" if their demands are not met, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported. The release of the 32 left about 50 passengers and crew members on the plane, according to IRNA. The gunmen said Wednesday that they would order the plane to fly elsewhere if their demands were not met.

Arab gunmen seeking the release of 17 convicted terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait hijacked a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet Tuesday and forced it to fly to Iran, where they threatened to kill several members of the Kuwaiti royal family who were among the 112 hostage passengers and crew members.

Fifteen convicted Shiite Muslim militants whose fate is linked to that of American and other Western hostages in Lebanon have been moved to Baghdad from a Kuwaiti jail, a Kuwaiti diplomat said Sunday. The men were convicted of taking part in a 1983 bombing campaign against the Kuwaiti government ousted last week by invading Iraqi forces. Their freedom has long been a key demand of hostage-takers including Islamic Jihad, which has held at least two Americans for more than five years.

President Hashemi Rafsanjani urged the United States to press Israel and Kuwait to release Muslim prisoners in exchange for help in gaining freedom for Western hostages in Lebanon. Iran and the pro-Iranian captors have often demanded that Israel free about 350 Muslim prisoners. But it was the first time in months that an Iranian leader referred to 15 Shiite Muslims jailed in Kuwait since 1984 for fatal car bombings.

The Administration's proposed sale of $7.6 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia was received with criticism and caution on Capitol Hill on Thursday, but key lawmakers indicated that they probably would support it, despite charges that the White House had broken a promise to limit the sale to items essential to urgent Saudi defense needs. Bowing to congressional pressure, the White House sent a scaled-down version of its original $21-billion Saudi arms package to Congress on Thursday.

Most of the 15 Shiite Muslims imprisoned in Kuwait on terrorism charges and whose fate was linked to that of two U.S. hostages held in Lebanon have been handed over to Iran following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, a Lebanese magazine said Friday. The magazine Ash Shiraa, which broke the Iran-Contra scandal, said most of the 15 Shiites, members of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, are now in Iran. Most of them are Iraqi Shiites.

A chemical engineer for an Alhambra oil-drilling firm who escaped this week from Iraqi-occupied Kuwait said about 30 Westerners in his residential compound could easily have fled into Saudi Arabia during the first few days after the Iraqi invasion but decided to stay put on the advice of U.S. Embassy officials. Sangarapillai Sivapathasundaram, a Sri Lankan national who has applied for U.S.

A Pittsburgh teen-ager was allowed to leave Kuwait, where she was held by Iraqi soldiers for 20 days, and has arrived safely in India. Vinil Polam, 14, reported Wednesday that the soldiers treated her well and that she is unharmed. "She's safe with her mom," said her father's office manager, Carol Thatcher. The teen-ager arrived in Madras, India, where her grandmother lives, on Wednesday with 28 other citizens of India, Thatcher said.

Iraq's military authorities ordered all Americans and Britons in occupied Kuwait to report to two luxury hotels Thursday, possibly setting the stage for a hostage crisis of unprecedented dimensions. The Iraqi general who issued the order said it was intended to assure the safety of the Americans and Britons--an estimated 6,500 people--but he indicated that those who do not comply will be rounded up, a senior State Department official said.

For several hours, thanks to a televised interview by ABC News, freedom appeared tantalizingly near for a family of four Americans--including a 6-month-old infant with a serious medical condition--detained by the Iraqi government.

Pro-Iranian kidnapers holding at least two American hostages reiterated, in a statement released Tuesday, their offer to trade their captives for 17 Shiite Muslims jailed in Kuwait. The typewritten statement from Islamic Jihad, or Islamic Holy War, was delivered to the offices of the independent newspaper Al Nahar and a Western news agency. Islamic Jihad said it issued the statement to mark the anniversary of the Oct. 23, 1983, car bombings of the U.S.

Iraq's military authorities ordered all Americans and Britons in occupied Kuwait to report to two luxury hotels Thursday, possibly setting the stage for a hostage crisis of unprecedented dimensions. The Iraqi general who issued the order said it was intended to assure the safety of the Americans and Britons--an estimated 6,500 people--but he indicated that those who do not comply will be rounded up, a senior State Department official said.

Fifteen convicted Shiite Muslim militants whose fate is linked to that of American and other Western hostages in Lebanon have been moved to Baghdad from a Kuwaiti jail, a Kuwaiti diplomat said Sunday. The men were convicted of taking part in a 1983 bombing campaign against the Kuwaiti government ousted last week by invading Iraqi forces. Their freedom has long been a key demand of hostage-takers including Islamic Jihad, which has held at least two Americans for more than five years.

The Iraqi blitzkrieg of neighboring Kuwait, a crushing jolt to intra-Arab relations, could incidentally affect one of the Middle East's most agonizing dramas, the fate of the foreign hostages in Lebanon. By seizing power in Kuwait city, the Iraqi military presumably fell heir to a number of Kuwaiti-held prisoners who are a key element of the hostage issue. The 15 prisoners are Shiite Muslim militants who were imprisoned in Kuwait for various terrorist acts including bomb attacks on the U.S.