Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789ROO0401020004-1
 WASHINGTON POST
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 JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ATM
 Hostages' Relea'se Divides Hebollah
 he latest intelligence reports coming across
 President Bush's desk give him bad news
 about the American hostages in Lebanon. It is
 T
 unlikely that the remaining six will be freed this
 year.
      The recent release of two hostages has set off a
 volatile feud-even gun battles-between factions
 of Hezbollah, the umbrella organization that
 tenuously controls the grab bag of greedy,
 egotistical terrorists who hold the hostages.
      The fighting is between the groups that follow
 Iranian hard-liner Ali Akbar Mohtashemi and those
 that line up behind the more flexible Ali Akbar
 Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's president. Rafsanjani
 wants to use the hostages to get the United States
 to return to Iran more than $1 billion in frozen
 assets. He also hopes the hostages can be a
 bartering chip in Iran's bid to join the community of
 civilized nations.
      But Mohtashemi's reporters are die-hard
 fundamentalists who would rather live in Hell than
 coexist peacefully with the "Great Satan" on earth.
      Rafsanjani thought he had control of the
 terrorists when he was able to install his
 functionary, Sheik Subhi Tufeyli, as the
 secretary-general of Hezbollah in a secret
 election" last December. Rafsanjani also had
 Hezbollah's spiritual leader, Sheik Fadiallah, in his
 court. But Tufeyli has been unable to win the
 support of all Hezbollah factions.
      It will be difficult for him to get Hezbollah to free
 any more Americans if the United States, Israel
 and Kuwait remain unwilling to meet the major
 demands of the terrorists, according to Central
 Intelligence Agency reports.
      The CIA has told Bush that the hostages' fate is
 in the hands of a secret seven-man council inside
 Hezbollah called the Tabbishi. Even the CIA
 doesn't know the names of five of the seven.
      Bush has been told that the Tabbishi are skittish
 about publicity and have no qualms about their
 mission. They call themselves "the hit men."
      The top two Tabbishi are linked to the oldest
 Hezbollah faction, the Islamic Jihad. Its titular
 leader is Hussein Musawi, a
 schoolteacher-turned-terrorist who orchestrated
 the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine
 barracks in Beirut in 1983.
      Islamic Jihad holds hostages Terry Anderson and
 Thomas Sutherland. The group's chief demand is
 the release of 15 fellow terrorists and relatives
 from Kuwaiti jails, but Kuwait has refused.
      Other cells of Hezbollah keep their hostages as
 insurance against an attack by Israel or the United
 States, or as bartering chips to get Lebanese and
 Palestinian prisoners out of Israeli jails.
      None of that helps Rafsanjani, who simply wants
 respect and money-Iran's frozen assets and some
 foreign aid to rebuild the country after the
 eight-year war with Iraq. Those clear-cut demands
 are no match for the ego, greed and lust for power
 that drives Hezbollah and the Tabbishi.
 The Tabbishi can't even agree on who is in charge.
 The No. 2 man is itching to oust the No. 1 man.
 According to one intelligence report, only their
 wives' close friendship keeps him from doinv it.
 Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789ROO0401020004-1