Terry Anderson spent a fifth birthday as a hostage today, a grim milestone in his captivity. His relatives and friends marked the event with a flood of messages and with a Mass in Washington. Radio reports said Lebanon's three television stations would screen a birthday message from his 4-year-old daughter, Sulome. The daily newspapers An-Nahar and As-Safir and the French-language L'Orient-Le Jour published English texts of letters to Anderson, the chief Middle East correspondent of The Associated Press who was abducted March 16, 1985. His sister, Peggy Say, wrote, ``In honor of your birthday on Friday, we will be in Washington with other hostage families to mark another sad year in which you have been denied your freedom.'' The Journalists' Committee to Free Terry Anderson, made up of colleagues from all over the United States, wrote: ``Please believe that not a day passes when we do not think of you and pray for you.'' The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan said it was sending a 33-foot birthday scroll to Anderson signed by 59 journalists and former colleagues in Tokyo. Anderson was a member of the club during a working assignment in Japan 1979-1981. Prominent journalists, along with representatives of the State Department and the embassies of Lebanon, Algeria and Syria, attended a Mass in Georgetown University's Dahlgren Chapel, where Mrs. Say said such ceremonies ensure her brother will not be forgotten. Gunmen seized the 42-year-old Anderson in Moslem west Beirut after a game of tennis that had been a brief respite from his reporting on Lebanon's civil war. He has not held Sulome, born three months after the morning he was kidnapped. He probably does not know that his father and brother died of cancer. Anderson's fate now appears to be caught up in a power struggle between Shiite Moslem radicals and moderates. He was kidnapped by Islamic Jihad, a group loyal to Iran whose name means Islamic Holy War. His abductors demand the release of 15 men imprisoned in Kuwait for bombing the U.S. and French embassies in 1983. Islamic Jihad also holds Thomas Sutherland, 57, an American who was acting dean of agriculture at American University of Beirut. Sutherland was kidnapped June 9, 1985. Police say Lebanese authorities have no information on the whereabouts of Anderson or the 15 other Western hostages in Lebanon. Four days ago, Islamic Jihad made its first statement in a year, reviving an old offer to trade Anderson and Sutherland for their comrades jailed in Kuwait. A copy of the statement delivered to a Western news agency in Beirut was accompanied by a photograph of Anderson similar to one released Nov. 4, 1988, after his last birthday. The statement was seen as a response to a declaration Monday by President Hashemi Rafsanjani of Iran that he would use its influence to free the hostages if the United States released Iranian assets worth up to $12 billion that have been frozen since 1979. Kuwait has refused to free the prsoners, but two members of the group were released in February after completing five-year sentences. The United States has said it will not negotiate with terrorists. Anderson and Sutherland are among eight American hostages, most believed held by pro-Iranians. Islamic Jihad issued its statement as the leader of Iran's revolutionary radicals, former Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, was on a three-week visit to Lebanon. He met with prominent Shiites, including leading figures in Hezbollah, believed to be the umbrella group for kidnap gangs. It was not clear why Mohtashemi, Rafsanjani's main political rival, came to Lebanon. But the trip underlined his power struggle with Rafsanjani, leader of the comparatively moderate ``pragmatists'' who want to restore relations with the West. A knowledgeable Shiite said privately the Islamic Jihad statement was ``a clear indication that the hostage-holders are not under Rafsanjani's control.'' Hezbollah appears to have split into factions, with the main groups supporting either Rafsanjani or Mohtashemi. Rafsanjani dismissed Mohtashemi after his election as president July 28. The former interior minister's surprise appearance in Lebanon quashed reports from Tehran that he was under house arrest. Mohtashemi returned to Tehran on Wednesday via Damascus, Syria. Since he was kidnapped, Anderson has been allowed to write a few letters to his family and occasionally to see Lebanese newspaper and television reports about relatives. American and French hostages who shared his captivity and were released have told of his courage and fears, how he has defied his captors and suffered the agonies of captivity. His father, Glenn, and elder brother, Glenn Jr., died of cancer in 1986. Released hostages said he did not know of the deaths. Anderson knows his daughter, Sulome, was born June 7, 1985, but has seen her only in a few seconds of film his captors allowed him to watch on Lebanese TV, according to letters from him released by the kidnappers.
As-Safir marked the fifth year as a hostage Four day ago . His sister, Tom Sutherland , and other family members and friends wrote greetings to Mr. Anderson that were published in English by the French -language newspapers An-Nahar and As-Safir . Police say Lebanese authorities have no information on the whereabouts of Mr. Anderson and 15 other Western hostages in Lebanon . Four day ago , Mr. Anderson 's captors, Hezbollah , made its first statement in a year , offering to trade Anderson and another hostage, Tom Sutherland , for their comrades jailed in Kuwait . A copy of the statement was delivered to a western news agency in Kuwait and included a photograph of Anderson .