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- <text id=89TT2028>
- <title>
- Aug. 07, 1989: World Notes:Middle East
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Aug. 07, 1989 Diane Sawyer:Is She Worth It?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 33
- World Notes
- MIDDLE EAST
- Bait for A Swap?
- </hdr><body>
- <p> It was a precision raid. Israeli commandos landed by
- helicopter outside the southern Lebanese town of Gibchite early
- Friday morning. They slipped through the dark to their target:
- an apartment on the eastern edge of town belonging to Sheik
- Abdel Karim Obeid, chief military commander of the southern
- Lebanese wing of Hizballah (Party of God), the fundamentalist
- Shi`ite group with close ties to Iran. The Israelis burst in,
- locked up Obeid's wife and children, and carried Obeid and two
- assistants off to Israel.
- </p>
- <p> Jerusalem cited ample military reasons for wanting Obeid
- out of action, claiming he has instigated dozens of attacks
- against Israel and the so-called security zone it maintains in
- Lebanon. But kidnaping is not the usual method of the Israelis.
- They may actually have wanted to acquire bait for a hostage
- swap. Two affiliate groups of Hizballah are believed to be
- holding three Israeli prisoners of war captured in 1986, two of
- them soldiers taken in the security zone and the third an air
- force navigator. Americans wonder if U.S. Lieut. Colonel William
- Higgins, head of the United Nations peacekeeping force in
- Lebanon, who was seized by Hizballah last year, might be part
- of a swap.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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