Iran Plan to Hit U.S. Targets Told : Embassies Cased by Diplomats, 2 Officials Say

Iran is making active preparations for terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies and other facilities around the world, apparently to retaliate for increased American involvement in the Persian Gulf, Administration officials said Friday.

Robert E. Lamb, chief of the State Department’s bureau of diplomatic security, said Iranian representatives, many of them accredited diplomats, have been casing U.S. embassies in search of soft spots that would be vulnerable to attack.

Another Administration official, who asked not to be identified by name, said intelligence reports from many countries, most of them in the Middle East, have indicated a sharp increase in Iranian terrorism planning. He said the activity accelerated after the United States agreed to escort Kuwaiti oil tankers in the gulf.

‘Most Serious’ Threat

“The Iranian threat to our embassies is the most serious that we have ever seen developing,” Lamb said Thursday night during a seminar on the impact of terrorism on the diplomatic process. He later elaborated on his comments in an interview.

Lamb said the U.S. government is better prepared to deal with the latest Iranian threat than it was in coping with earlier attacks on embassies because it has better intelligence about Tehran’s plans.

Although he declined to go into detail about plans to protect the embassies, Lamb said the Administration was prepared to employ state-of-the-art technology to make it difficult for terrorists to victimize American diplomats.

Asked by a participant in the seminar why the United States did not give automatic tracking devices to potential kidnap victims, Lamb replied, “We do use that technology.” But he said it is not possible to wire up everyone who conceivably might be abducted. Moreover, he said, the terrorists often deal more harshly with hostages found to be carrying devices that could be used for espionage.

Military Targets

The other Administration official said that in addition to embassies, U.S. military facilities were being targeted. He said the Iran-backed organization Hezbollah (Party of God), made up of Shia Muslim fundamentalists operating primarily in Lebanon, was also “trying to thicken its network” of terrorists.

Lamb said that while Iran may use surrogates like Hezbollah to carry out terrorist attacks, much of the planning was being carried out by officials assigned to Iranian embassies and other diplomatic missions throughout the world, according to intelligence reports.

Libya has used its accredited diplomats to plan and carry out terrorist acts for several years, U.S. officials have charged.

The latest concern about Iranian terrorism is reminiscent of last summer’s warnings by Administration officials of Libyan plans for a renewed terrorist campaign. These warnings came some months after the U.S. bombing raid on Libya in response for Tripoli’s role in the bombing of a West Berlin disco, in which an American serviceman was killed . Although U.S. officials say Libya continues to back some terrorist groups, the predicted upsurge of Libyan activity did not materialize. Administration officials admitted later that at least some of the comments about Libya were part of a “disinformation campaign” intended to undermine Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

Psychological Warfare

One Administration official said the Iranian regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini may be engaging in psychological warfare of its own by making detectable preparations for terrorist attacks that it has no intention of carrying out.

Nevertheless, the official said, the Administration takes the possibility of Iranian terrorism very seriously. Non-government specialists in Iranian affairs warned earlier that if the Tehran regime chose to retaliate for U.S. military activity in the gulf, it would be much more likely to do so through terrorist attacks than by engaging the U.S. Navy in conventional warfare.

Since the United States last month began “reflagging” and providing Naval escort for Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf to protect them against Iranian attacks, Iranian officials have made frequent public threats of retaliation.

Last week, after at least 275 Iranian pilgrims died during riots in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Iranian Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi declared that the blame for the unrest was “entirely America’s, and we will take revenge directly on America.”

Comments From Khomeini

Khomeini, said Friday that Islamic “holy warriors” will punish the United States for the deaths of the pilgrims in Mecca, according to the Associated Press.

“When we fight for justice, they fight against us,” Khomeini said of the United States in a speech from Tehran broadcast on Iranian television and monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus. “The whole world, including the United States, can do what it likes. They are only creating problems for themselves.”

Saudi officials say the Mecca unrest was started by the Iranian militants among the pilgrims.

Lamb said the modern era of state-supported terrorism began when Iranian officials realized they had made political capital from the seizure of Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. He said the attack on the embassy apparently began spontaneously but later evolved into Iranian government policy.

L. Bruce Laingen, the U.S. charge d’affaires in Tehran who was one of the 52 American hostages held for the entire 444-days, said the seizure of the embassy was engineered by a radical faction of Iranians for the purpose of discrediting the relatively moderate government then in power. He said the action achieved its purpose.

“It became political within hours,” Laingen said.

Both Lamb and Laingen, who also spoke at the seminar, which was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and the Meridian House International educational organization, agreed that the United States must be prepared to engage in military retaliation against terrorists.

Laingen also warned against making deals with terrorists to obtain the release of hostages. He said he hoped that the Administration is firm in its “no deal” policy following the Iran- contra debacle.