CBS Evening News - 1988-02-19
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Read a transcript preview of “CBS Evening News - 1988-02-19” from malgent, uploaded on 2026-02-18.
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Language: English (YouTube automatic captions)
[0:00] See you Monday. Now to CBS.
[0:04] >> This is the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather
[0:06] reporting. Good evening. The United
[0:08] States got an ominous message from
[0:10] Lebanon today. A radical
[0:12] Iranian-connected group that has claimed
[0:14] responsibility for killing several
[0:16] hostages said it is holding US Marine
[0:19] Colonel William Higgins. It said Higgins
[0:21] would not be freed until Israel
[0:23] withdraws all its forces from Lebanon
[0:26] and releases all its Lebanese and
[0:28] Palestinian prisoners. From London, Tom
[0:31] Fenton begins our report.
[0:33] >> The claim was accompanied by proof, a
[0:35] photostat of two identification cards
[0:38] that match those issued by the UN to
[0:40] Lieutenant Colonel Higgins. The
[0:42] statement accused him of being an agent
[0:44] of the Central Intelligence Agency who
[0:46] uses his UN observer's work as a cover.
[0:49] The name the kidnappers used, The
[0:51] Oppressed of the Earth, has been linked
[0:53] to the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner
[0:56] to Beirut in which an American
[0:58] serviceman was murdered. It's also been
[1:00] linked to a series of terrorist acts
[1:02] including the kidnapping of American
[1:04] journalist Charles Glass last year.
[1:06] The men behind this shadowy group are
[1:08] believed to be some of the most
[1:10] dangerous terrorists, the extreme wing
[1:12] of the growing pro-Iranian faction in
[1:14] Lebanon.
[1:15] >> They are extreme, they are pro-Iranian,
[1:18] and there's no doubt at all that the
[1:20] Tehran regime has considerable power to
[1:23] influence them and to
[1:26] control their activities in the Lebanon.
[1:29] >> Colonel Higgins was a prime target, the
[1:31] most senior of the few remaining
[1:32] Americans in the lawless Musli