"Higgins Ventured into Southern Lebanon Alone"

Iranian-backed Hezbollah Kidnaps U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. W. Higgins

News article

By: Agence France Presse

Date: December 23, 1991

Source: Agence France Presse.

About the Author: Agence France Presse (AFP) is the third largest international news service, providing reporting for global media outlets. AFP reporting reaches subscribers via radio, television, and newspapers. The organization maintains a network of journalists in 165 countries.

INTRODUCTION

After one year of captivity and three years after his reported death, the body of U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Colonel William Higgins was finally returned to the United States. Higgins had been part of a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping contingency stationed in Lebanon in the late 1980s. His abduction and death was most likely organized by the militant group Hezbollah (also known as Hizballah, or Party of God) who had accused Higgins of espionage.

In early 1980, Lebanon was embroiled in a civil war that had been ravaging the country since 1975. Iranian and Syrian backed militias, intent on creating an Islamic-fundamentalist state in Lebanon, struggled for power against the Christian Maronites. Adding to the conflict, Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, claiming that the military incursion was necessary to protect its borders from attacks by members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) living in refugee camps. Two months later, a U.S. led cease-fire called for international monitors to facilitate the withdrawal of PLO members from Lebanon. The cease-fire also called for Israel to agree to halt further advancement into Lebanon and, according to international law, to ensure the safety of Palestinian refugees. The Israeli presence in Lebanon continued, and as the civil war between the Islamic fundamentalists and Southern Lebanon Army, armed and trained by Israel, escalated, a multinational force was called upon to make possible a new cease-fire and bring stability to the war-torn region.

Even with U.N. observers arbitrating between sides, conflict continued throughout the region. Militant groups tied to Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim extremist organization, began a wave of terror in the 1980s through suicide bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations. Groups such as Islamic Jihad and the Organization of the Oppressed of the World fell under the umbrella of Hezbollah, whose goal is the expulsion of western influences from the region.

In 1983, Islamic Jihad launched simultaneous suicide attacks in Beirut against western multinational peacekeeping forces, killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers. Throughout the decade, random kidnappings, and often murders, were also used as tools of Hezbollah.

The first American kidnapped was William Buckley on March 16, 1984. Although Buckley was serving as a political officer for the State Department, Islamic Jihad claimed that he was the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief and killed him. Confirmation of his death did not occur until 1987. Dozens more westerners were kidnapped; several were killed by their captors. One American, Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, was held in Hezbollah captivity for almost seven years.

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SIGNIFICANCE

Operating as from the command of the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization, Marine Lt. Colonel William Higgins began his assignment in July of 1987. Prior to his position with the U.N., Lt. Colonel Higgins had served as the Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense. His reported death and video of the slaying occurred in February 1988, and deeply disturbed the American people. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush called for an end to the violence that plagued the region and the release of all hostages being held. By December 1991, the last American hostages held by Islamic Jihad were released. Terry Anderson had been held since March 16, 1985. Joseph James Cicippio, the acting comptroller for American University, had been kidnapped on September 12, 1986, and Alann Steen, a communications instructor at Beirut University College had been abducted on January 24, 1987.

Hezbollah is still regarded by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization. In 1992, members of Hezbollah attacked the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The group is also suspected of involvement in the 1994 bombing of an Israeli Cultural Center in the same city. In 2000, Hezbollah captured 4 Israelis, three of them soldiers, whom they are suspected of luring to Lebanon under false pretenses. Hezbollah is suspected of maintaining cells in North and South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Web sites

BBC News. "Who Are Hezbollah?" April 4, 2002. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1908671.stm> (accessed July 8, 2005).

Thomas: Legislation Information on the Internet. "Profiles of Western Hostages of Lebanese Kidnappers." <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r101:S12MY9-551:> (accessed July 8, 2005).

United Nations. "Middle East: UNTSO: Background." <http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/untso/background.html> (accessed July 8, 2005).