Rabin Warns Syria on Terror : Britain Probes Alleged Link to El Al Bomb

Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, repeating his assertion that Syrians were involved in the unsuccessful attempt to blow up an El Al airliner in London last month, warned Wednesday that such attempts heighten the risk of a Syrian confrontation with his nation.

Rabin said the attempted bombing indicates that some Syrian officials are willing to take greater risks in sponsoring terrorist acts against Israel.

The defense minister’s allegations of Syrian involvement, which he first made Monday, were matched by reports from London that British authorities also are conducting investigations along the same lines.

British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe told the House of Commons that Syrian Ambassador Loutof Haydar was summoned to the Foreign Office last Friday in connection with the El Al case. The ambassador returned to the Foreign Office on Monday, apparently at his own request.

“I can confirm that we discussed the El Al bombing incident with him,” Howe told Parliament. However, he declined to provide any details of the discussions pending conclusion of police investigations.

Howe’s statement followed a report Wednesday in the Times of London that police investigators were seeking permission to question a Syrian diplomat who they believe may have been linked to the bombing attempt.

Expulsion Expected

“It is expected that the diplomat, whose name has not been released, will eventually be expelled from this country,” the published report stated.

Foreign Office officials have declined to comment on the report and refused to elaborate on Howe’s parliamentary statement.

The Israeli defense minister’s remarks in Washington broadened the public discussion of those trying to pinpoint responsibility for recent terrorist attacks and attempted strikes. Until now, the Reagan Administration has directed its anti-terrorism campaign almost solely against Libya.

In a series of public appearances, Rabin sought to draw attention to what he portrayed as a Syrian connection to the recent upsurge in terrorism. The Israeli minister, conducting an official visit here this week, has conferred with Vice President George Bush, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and members of Congress.

Long-Term Buildup

Rabin charged in a session with Pentagon reporters Wednesday that, with the assistance of the Soviet Union, Syria is engaged in a long-term drive to build up its air, land and naval forces. Syria maintains what is already considered one of the strongest military operations in the Arab world.

The minister said that Syria is “increasing the level of risk vis-a-vis Israel” in such incidents as the April 17 attempt to place a bomb on an El Al jumbo jet about to leave London’s Heathrow Airport for Tel Aviv.

Rabin said: “We have all the reason to believe that it was planned, carried out, by part of the established organization of the security and intelligence community of Syria.”

“The readiness to take such a decision--which I don’t believe was taken on a relatively low level, but much higher--shows there is a readiness on the part of certain Syrians, parts of the government, to increase the level of risks that they are ready to take in encouraging and carrying out terror acts against Israel,” he said.

Link to Airport Attacks

Moreover, he linked the Middle Eastern nation to the terrorist attacks last December at airports in Rome and Vienna that left 20 people dead, including five Americans. The Reagan Administration has said that those attacks were carried out with Libyan assistance.

Rabin said that “some of the participants” in those attacks “come from Syria,” but he refused to elaborate. However, he stressed that there was a “clear distinction” between the airport attacks Dec. 27 and what he called the deeper level of Syrian responsibility in the London case.

In addition to Rabin’s allegations and the apparent line of the investigation being pursued by the British, West Berlin officials have said that two Arabs being held as suspects in the April 5 bombing of a discotheque have told police that they smuggled explosives into the West from the Syrian Embassy in East Berlin.

However, the two, Ahmed Nawaf Mansour Hasi, a Palestinian, and Farouk Salameh, a Jordanian, have denied involvement in the bombing of the La Belle discotheque, in which a U.S. Army sergeant and a Turkish woman were killed.

The Reagan Administration, saying it had irrefutable evidence that Libya was behind the bombing, launched air attacks against the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi on April 15 in retaliation for Libya’s alleged support of terrorist activities in Europe.

Denial From Embassy

The Syrian Embassy in East Berlin issued a statement Wednesday denying complicity in the La Belle bombing and a March 29 attack on the premises of the German-Arab Friendship Society. West Berlin police have said that the same type of explosives was use in both attacks.

Hasi, one of the two men held in West Berlin, is the brother of Nezar Hindawi, a 31-year-old Palestinian carrying a Jordanian passport, who has already been formally charged in London with conspiracy to murder in connection with the El Al bombing attempt.

Hindawi was arrested at a West London hotel the day after his pregnant Irish girlfriend was stopped as she tried to board the aircraft with a 10-pound bomb in her luggage.

The woman, who apparently was unaware that she was carrying the bomb, was later released. Police said the bomb would almost certainly have destroyed the plane and killed all 388 people aboard.

James Gerstenzang reported from Washington and Tyler Marshall from London.