2 Soviets’ Slaying Reported, Denied : Beirut Accounts Disagree; 4 Alive, Embassy Source Says

BEIRUT â€”  A Muslim extremist group said it executed two of its four Soviet hostages Tuesday, but another militant Islamic group said the men were alive and threatened to kill them within hours.

A source close to the Soviet Embassy said the four men, seized at gunpoint in two separate incidents Monday, were alive and in Beirut.

It was impossible to independently confirm any of the reports.

Two different groups, one calling itself the “Islamic Liberation Organization-Ibn Walid Forces� and one known as Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War) have claimed responsibility for the kidnapings in anonymous telephone calls and communiques to international news services and Beirut newspapers.

1st Abduction of Soviets

A score of foreigners, mostly American or Western European, have been kidnaped in Beirut over the last 20 months, but this was the first abduction of Soviet diplomats here.

Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for most of those kidnapings but, despite repeated death threats, has not been known to execute its hostages.

The anonymous telephone callers to an international news agency who said that two of the hostages had been killed claimed to represent Islamic Jihad.

Soon after, the hitherto-unknown Islamic Liberation Organization delivered color photographs of the four Soviets with pistols at their heads.

“We will start carrying out the death sentence on the first hostage at 9 p.m. (2 p.m. EDT) sharp unless the atheistic campaigns against Islamic Tripoli stop,� a statement from the group said. It added that it has no links to Islamic Jihad.

‘Strike in Strength’

“All these forces and Syria assume responsibility for the lives of these (Soviet hostages). We shall execute them all and also strike in strength,� the statement continued.

The deadline passed with no immediate word on the captives’ fate.

Tripoli is the northern port city where intense fighting continued Tuesday between pro-Syrian leftist militias allied against anti-Syrian Sunni Muslim fundamentalists fighting under the banner of the Tawhid militia.

Both groups claiming responsibility for the abduction of the three Soviet diplomats and the embassy physician have demanded that the Soviet Union pressure Syria--its closest ally in the region--into halting the Tripoli fighting.

According to a Soviet source in Beirut, the embassy was told by Syrian sources during the afternoon that the four men were alive and in Beirut and it was hoped that they would be free in two or three days.

Hopeful of Release

A Soviet Embassy official, however, said: “We have no additional information. . . . We hope everything will finish very well.�

Soviet officials named the four hostages as Oleg Spirin, a commercial attache; Valery Kornev, a second secretary; Arkady Katakov, a cultural attache, and Dr. Nikolai Versky, the embassy doctor.

Pro-Syrian Muslim militiamen in Beirut were hunting for the missing men, and Soviet Charge d’Affaires Yuri Suslikov had talks with President Amin Gemayel to ask for help from the Lebanese government.

The Soviet source said Moscow was also in “high-level� contact with Syria about the kidnapings, but there was no sign of the Syrian-backed assault on Tripoli slackening.

Two Reported Killed

Earlier Tuesday, a caller claiming to represent Islamic Jihad said two of the four kidnaped Soviet diplomats had been slain.

“We killed two, the commercial attache and the doctor, and that’s all for today,� an Arabic-speaking man told the news agency.

Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for most of the other West Beirut kidnapings and says it will not release hostages until Kuwait frees 17 people jailed in connection with a string of bombings there in December, 1983.

14 Westerners Held

There are presently 14 Westerners being held in Lebanon--six from the United States, four from France, three from Britain and one from Italy.

In Tripoli, Syria’s allies have made limited inroads into areas controlled by the Tawhid militia, also known as the Islamic Unification Movement, since they launched a full-scale offensive four days ago backed by rocket, artillery and tank fire from Syrian-held hills nearby.

The offensive followed an unsuccessful attempt by Syria to mediate an end to earlier bouts of heavy fighting between rival groups in Tripoli.

Nearly half a million civilians have fled Tripoli in recent days. Police say thousands of civilians are trapped in the city without proper supplies of food, water and electricity.