Two pro-Iranian Moslem groups have threatened to kill U.S. and Saudi Arabian nationals to punish Washington and Riyadh for what they dubbed hostile policies against Moslem "strugglers."
The Revolutionary Justice Organization (RJO), which holds two U.S. hostages, said Wednesday it would kill the Americans if their government implemented a newly approved law to seize people wanted by the United States in foreign countries."The legal authorities, the Congress and people would bear the dire consequences of this decision if it was endorsed. Our reverse decision will be to kill 10 Americans in return for the threatening of the freedom or the life of one revolutionary," said the RJO in a handwritten statement.
Another extremist group, Islamic Jihad (Holy War), claimed responsibility for killing a Saudi Arabian diplomat in Moslem west Beirut and vowed to slay more Saudis to avenge the beheading of 16 Shi'ite Moslem Kuwaitis.
Mohammed al-Marzouki, 70, was shot dead Wednesday by three gunmen as he left his home. His driver was wounded.
"We will not leave any of the (Saudi) tyrants in happiness. We will kill them wherever we find them...Wherever they go, even in their fortresses," Islamic Jihad said in a statement.
In Washington, U.S. officials said last month the FBI had been authorized to seize people wanted by the United States from foreign countries without clearance from the authorities there.
"The Revolutionary Justice Organization warns America against implementing this decision. Any movement to chase the strugglers in the world will oblige us to chase Americans across the world and punish them," the RJO said.
Iran Wednesday passed a similar law authorizing its agents to hunt down U.S. citizens in other countries and seize them if they have been convicted by Iranian courts.
The RJO called on all "revolutionary forces" to counter any (American) attack by a similar one."
It accompanied its statement with a photograph of U.S. hostage Edward Tracy, 58, a book salesman seized Oct. 21, 1986. It also holds U.S. hostage Joseph James Cicippio, 58, a university administrator kidnapped Sept. 12, 1986.
Six other Americans are held hostage in Lebanon by other pro-Iranian Moslem groups.
In Riyadh, a Saudi Arabian foreign ministry statement said the kingdom "strongly condemns these recurrent criminal acts against its citizens abroad by terrorist cowards." It demanded that Lebanon arrest and punish the killers of the Saudi official.
In Wednesday's statement, Islamic Jihad - which holds U.S. hostages Terry Anderson and Thomas Sutherland - said the slain diplomat worked for Saudi intelligence. Last week, it vowed vengeance against Saudi Arabia for executing the 16 Kuwaitis who were found guilty of bomb attacks during the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia in July.
Police said Marzouki, married to a Lebanese, remained in Beirut as Saudi Arabia's last representative when Riyadh closed its mission after pro-Iranian militants stormed it in 1984.
He had been living in Lebanon for more than 10 years.
Islamic Jihad sent with the statement a photo of Anderson, Middle East bureau chief of the Associated Press, seized on March 16, 1985.