The World - News from Feb. 29, 1988

President Hafez Assad has hinted that Syria may be able to help free kidnaped Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, a U.S. official said. The official said that Assad told Secretary of State George P. Shultz during his visit to Damascus on Saturday that he had “some ideas� about the Higgins case. Higgins, 43, of Danville, Ky., headed a U.N. truce observer team attached to the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon when he was kidnaped Feb. 17. A pro-Iranian Shia Muslim faction calling itself the Oppressed of the Earth says it is holding him.