NATO Chief Hints Kadafi Plot; It’s News to the U.S.

The supreme allied commander in Europe says France’s recent expulsion of two Libyan diplomats may have prevented a terrorist attack on U.S. Ambassador to France Joe Rodgers, but other U.S. officials said they weren’t aware of any threats.

“I think you’ll find the press releasing the fact within a few days that (the Libyans) had, in fact, been party to a plan to terrorize the American ambassador in Paris,” U.S. Army Gen. Bernard Rogers said Wednesday night.

He also said there is “indisputable evidence” that the April 5 bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed a U.S. Army sergeant can be linked to a “worldwide network” of terrorists set up by Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

“I can’t tell you how we get it, but the evidence is there,” he said during a question-and-answer session after a speech at the private Brandon Hall School.

A State Department official in Washington said “we are aware of no specific threats against Ambassador Rodgers.”

But the official, who demanded anonymity, would not rule out threats against the embassy. “In the current security climate, we must assume there are security risks to this embassy,” he said. “We will not comment on the specific risks.”

Another official, who also insisted on anonymity, said the Libyans were expelled “to thwart a possible terrorist attack, but it’s not clear it was aimed against any particular person.”

Although the White House has stopped short of officially blaming Kadafi for the West Berlin bombing, Rogers said U.S. officials had learned of the possibility of a terrorist attack in West Berlin on Saturday.

U.S. officials were in the process of warning soldiers at off-duty gathering spots in West Berlin when the blast occurred at the La Belle club, he said, adding: “We were about 15 minutes too late.”