Copyright 1994 Jerusalem Post
Jerusalem Post
January 12, 1994
HEADLINE: CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION BRIEFS IDF, FAMILIES ON MIAS
BYLINE: Alon Pinkas and David Rudge
The US congressional delegation investigating the fate of three
IDF soldiers missing in action since the Sultan Yaakub battle in June
1982 returned from Lebanon yesterday and briefed IDF officers on their
findings.
The American team, dispatched to the area after Syria promised
the US to assist in finding any clue leading to new information,
reportedly brought back with them soil samples from a village near
Sultan Yaakub, where they visited.
Local villagers apparently said that in 1982, Palestinians in the
area boasted that they "recently buried three Israeli bodies". The
army would not comment on the briefing.
The delegation also met with the families of the three soldiers.
Israel Radio reported that they told the families that they were
receiving the full cooperation of both Syria and Lebanon, and hoped
that in a few weeks they would get some concrete results.
However, Amal leader Nabih Berri said yesterday that he would
refuse to meet the US congressional team.
"Out of respect for American law that bans US citizens from
visiting Lebanon, I can't meet these people," Berri, also speaker of
the Lebanese parliament, was quoted as saying on Lebanese radio
stations.
Hizbullah has made it clear on several occasions that it is
prepared to discuss the whole prisoners and MiA issue with
"international and humanitarian organizations," but not with the US
which it described as overtly pro-Israeli.
A Hizbullah leader, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, was quoted by newspapers
yesterday as saying that if all the MiAs, and especially Ron Arad,
were in Hizbullah hands "the matter would have taken a different
course."
"But we have said all along that we know nothing about Arad. We
have two Israeli soldiers in our hands and the conditions for their
release are known to all concerned," Kaouk was quoted as saying.
Kaouk maintained that Syria had not put any pressure on Hizbullah
to meet the US congressional team, despite the recent visit to
Damascus by Hizbullah secretary-general Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah which
coincided with the arrival of the Americans in the Syrian capital.
In their editorials, several Lebanese newspapers mocked the US
humanitarian mission, describing the congressional team's fact-finding
visit to the area as a "charade."
The newspapers, including those known to be pro-Syrian, have
accused the US of ignoring Lebanese being held by Israel.
Some politicians, echoing the general feeling, were reported to
have called on the Lebanese government to refuse to have anything to
do with the US mission.