Freedom seen for 2nd hostage // Lebanese vow to release Reed

BEIRUT Lebanese kidnappers said Sunday that American hostageFrank Herbert Reed would be freed by tomorrow.

A previously unknown group, the Organization of the IslamicDawn, announced the release in a statement to an international newsagency in Moslem west Beirut. An earlier unsigned announcement saidReed was to be freed within 48 hours.

The statements, which were accompanied by photographs of Reed,followed the release a week ago of hostage Robert Polhill after 1,183days in the hands of the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad for the Liberationof Palestine.

Polhill was the first American hostage released in Lebanon since1986. Until Sunday, Reed, director of the Lebanese InternationalSchool, had not been heard of since his abduction on Sept. 9, 1986.

In a color photograph accompanying the first announcement onReed, sent to the Moslem west Beirut-based an-Nahar newspaper and toan international news agency, he looked clean and shaven and wasdressed in a blue shirt.

The Libyan-backed Arab Revolutionary Cells said in 1986 that ithad abducted Reed, but the claim was never verified.

The kidnappers' second statement sought to clarify theiridentity. "We assert that the statement issued by us did not carry the signature of the ArabRevolutionary Cells-Omar al-Mukhtar Forces," it said.

It was accompanied by a black and white photo in which the57-year-old Reed, a convert to Islam, appeared tired and haggard.

It was written in Arabic and delivered Sunday night. It said,"We have decided to release American hostage Frank Reed within 48hours, carrying a message addressed to the American administration."

There are 16 Westerners, including seven Americans, missing inLebanon. Most have not been heard of since they were abducted.

The announcement on Reed follows a week of speculationthroughout the Middle East that another American was to be freed.

Most hostage-takers link the release of Westerners in Lebanon tothe freeing of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israel's chief of operations in Lebanon, Uri Lubrani, said therewould be no swap of Arab prisoners for Western hostages unless threecaptured Israeli servicemen were part of any deal.

Lubrani told Israel's Maariv newspaper that Arabs jailed inIsrael would be exchanged only if missing Israeli soldiers werereturned.

Israel believes three of its six soldiers missing in Lebanon arebeing held by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, or Party of God. Hezbollahdenies it.

Hopes of a breakthrough on hostages rose after Iran's PresidentAli Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi andLebanon's most influential Shiite cleric, Sheikh Mohammed HusseinFadlallah, called on the kidnappers to free their captives.

There have been reports in recent months of negotiationsinvolving Iran and the United States, but Tehran and Washington havedenied there have been direct contacts.