Debacle in Chad Causes Kadafi’s Worst Crisis : Terrorism Shows No Decline Since Attack

When American warplanes bombed Libya a year ago, President Reagan called it “a single engagement in the long battle against terrorism” and vowed that the United States would keep using military force until Libya and other nations “end the pursuit of terror for political goals.”

Since then, there have been no additional American strikes. And terrorists have remained active.

A senior U.S. official specializing in anti-terrorism said that the air attack on Libya served the useful purpose of demonstrating “that there are penalties for state-supported terrorism, although it is not always the same penalty.”

The official conceded, however, that the message has been blurred by revelations that the Reagan Administration sold arms to Iran, which, like Libya, is on the State Department’s list of nations that support terrorism. The other countries on the list are Syria, Cuba, North Korea and South Yemen.

Vigilance Increased

Since U.S. warplanes hit suspected terrorist targets in Libya last April 15, the official said, Western nations have increased their vigilance against terrorism by improving security at airports, strengthening security at potential terrorist targets and encouraging police to “go after terrorists as criminals.”

Also, he said, Western European nations have ended their earlier policy of, in effect, giving sanctuary to terrorists who tacitly agree to stage their attacks somewhere else.

However, statistics compiled by the State Department show that the number and ferocity of terrorist attacks was virtually the same in 1986 as in 1985. Although the rapid annual rate of increase of the early 1980s was not repeated, the problem certainly did not go away.

The department recorded 737 terrorist incidents last year, contrasted with 785 in 1985. Total casualties were up to 2,087 last year from 2,042 in 1985. But fatalities declined to 544 last year from 825 a year earlier.

Perhaps significantly, almost 65% of the terrorist attacks last year--up from 40% the year before--were aimed at just three countries--the United States, Israel and France. The three have been the most active in mounting military retaliation against terrorists.

The report showed that 198 of the terrorist incidents were directed at American targets last year, contrasted with 170 the year before. Israel was the victim in 193 incidents, and French targets were hit 85 times.

The perpetrators include Muslim extremists and the Irish Republican Army, with the Red Army Faction in West Germany and Direct Action in France also responsible for large shares of terrorist activity. In both of the last two years, nearly half of all terrorist incidents recorded by the State Department occurred in the Middle East.

The U.S. anti-terrorism official said that Libyan involvement in terrorism declined in the months immediately after the U.S. bombing there. But he said intelligence reports indicate that Libya’s leader, Col. Moammar Kadafi, has recently stepped up planning for future assaults.

Ominous Sign

More ominously, the official said, Libya’s recent humiliating military defeat in Chad “might cause people in the Libyan government to argue that a terrorist action is in order” to refurbish Kadafi’s image. Non-government experts on terrorism generally share the assessment that although Kadafi’s debacle in Chad may eventually help to bring him down, it may make him more dangerous in the short run.

Another senior Reagan Administration official said that immediately after the bombing, Kadafi reached “the weakest point of his 17 years. A year later, he’s even more so. But this cat has a lot of lives, and I think it’s more than nine.”

The official said that Kadafi might transfer some of his terrorist activities from Western Europe to the Caribbean or the South Pacific, because European nations have improved their defenses.

Robert Kupperman, a terrorism expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, predicted that Kadafi “will engage in some very serious terrorist actions because of his losses in Chad. I would expect him to try for assassinations, particularly in Europe.”

New Terrorist Tactics

Kupperman said that terrorists worldwide have become more sophisticated and acquired more high-technology equipment, in part as a result of increasingly effective efforts by Western governments to defend against such staples of terrorism as airline hijacking, airport lounge attacks and hidden bombs.

“There will be more attacks against economic infrastructure, and the attacks may be even more bloody,” Kupperman said. “Because of the successes we have had, the terrorists will up the ante qualitatively. They will have to go for more spectacular actions.”

Kupperman added that the Iran- contra affair caused severe damage to Washington’s anti-terrorism policy, not so much because it showed an American willingness to deal with terrorist nations but because it demonstrated that “we can’t conduct covert actions properly.” He said that covert penetration of terrorist groups is by far the most effective way of neutralizing them.

Mark A. Heller, a former Israeli strategic analyst who is now a professor at Cornell University, said the Reagan Administration attacked Libya because it “was looking for someone to hit in order to put some substance into the terrorism policy.”

‘Easiest Target’

“Kadafi was the easiest target, but he is probably the least important of all the state leaders that support terrorism,” Heller said. “The message was mixed by the way it was applied only to Kadafi in the first place, and then it was clearly undermined by American arms sales to Iran. There is no indication, so far as I can see, that the attack on Libya has had any effect on anyone else.”

The instability of the world price of oil during the last 12 months may have had more effect than the U.S. bombing on restraining Libyan-sponsored terrorist attacks. Kadafi has less money to bankroll international terrorism. A senior State Department official estimated that Libyan oil revenue has declined from about $22 billion a year to about $6 billion a year.

William B. Quandt, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed that Kadafi’s declining revenue may have made him more cautious. But he warned that the Libyan strongman “is not out of the business.”

“The exaggerated rhetoric (from the Administration) about how much we achieved by bombing Libya has to be discounted,” Quandt said. “This has not been a good year for Kadafi, but his defeats have not necessarily been because of the bombing we carried out last April.

“The single most important setback was in Chad. It makes him look foolish in Africa, it alienates his army and it makes the Russians mad at him. But he still is in the business of trying to act against American interests.”