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.