Terrorists increase pressure on the U.S. to leave Lebanon
Hardly a government in the Arab world does not contain at least one Cabinet minister who is a graduate of the 117-year-old American University of Beirut. Despite nearly a decade of civil war and continuing turmoil, the university has remained a bulwark of learning and an island of relative tranquillity in a scarred and anguished city. Last week it also became a monument to the senseless terror that besets all Lebanon. Its president, Malcolm Kerr, 52, whose life had been devoted to Arab culture and education, was shot dead by two unknown gunmen, apparently for no reason except that he was an American.
Shortly afterward, an anonymous caller telephoned the French news agency Agence France-Presse and said that the assassination of Kerr had been carried out by members of the Islamic Jihad, the same Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim group that is believed to have bombed the U.S. and French military headquarters in Beirut last October as well as the Israeli headquarters in Tyre. The caller said that Kerr was "the victim of the American military presence in Beirut," and vowed that "not a single American or Frenchman will remain on this soil."
The caller also said that the Islamic Jihad had been responsible for the Beirut kidnaping of the Saudi consul general, Hussein Farrash, a day earlier. Farrash, 45, had been abducted by seven gunmen who intercepted his limousine as he was driving to work. According to the anonymous message, the diplomat would be tried according to Islamic law, executed, and his body would be "thrown out."
The attack against a Saudi added a new and troubling element to the violent Lebanese equation. The Syrians, who occupy the area of the Bekaa Valley that serves as a base for the pro-Iranian fanatics, have allowed the extremists fairly free rein. But Saudi Arabia bankrolls Syria to the tune of $1 billion a year, and Saudi diplomats have frequently acted as mediators in intra-Arab disputes. In tacit recognition of their status, Saudi diplomats had been exempt from the terror that has made victims of both Arabs and non-Arabs in Beirut. As the week passed, there was no further word on Farrash's fate.
In targeting Kerr for assassination, the killers chose a man who had spent much of his life promoting trust and friendship between the West and the Arab world. Kerr was born in Beirut, the son of an American biochemistry professor at the university. He studied there and at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Later he taught political science for 20 years at the University of California at Los Angeles. But Kerr always dreamed of returning to
Lebanon to lead the institution that had been so much a part of his heritage, and in late 1982 he got his wish when he was named president of the American University. His immediate predecessor, Acting President David Dodge, had been kidnaped by Muslim extremists in July, with the evident backing of both Syria and Iran. Dodge was finally released in July 1983, thanks largely to efforts by Syrian President Hafez Assad's brother Rifaat, head of the Syrian internal security forces.