Israelis Link Palestinians to Jet Crash : Terror Expert Blames Group Opposed to U.S., PLO Dialogue

Foreign Minister Moshe Arens today linked the crash of a Pan Am jet in Scotland to Palestinian factions. An Israeli newspaper and terror experts blamed Syrian-backed radical groups opposed to the U.S.-PLO talks.

The daily English-language newspaper The Nation quoted unidentified Western intelligence sources as saying the Syrian-backed Ahmed Jibril group was responsible. It said investigators believed that at least one person aboard the doomed flight could be identified as belonging to Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command group.

Israel Opposed to Talks

Israeli officials bitterly opposed the U.S. decision earlier this month to open a dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization after its chief, Yasser Arafat, renounced terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist.

Arens, interviewed in Hebrew on Israel radio, said that “based on our assumptions, and those of our experts, this is an operation of international terror, apparently Arab international terror.”

Arens attacked the U.S.-PLO dialogue, saying “such steps would only strengthen the wave of terror and encourage terror groups and activities.”

Ariel Merari, a senior researcher in terrorism at Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, said the attack was apparently staged to block the U.S.-PLO talks.

Radicals Suspected

“Radical Palestinian factions, who declared Arafat a traitor, are the most likely candidates,” Merari said in an interview. “They likely had Syrian or Libyan backing.”

He said Palestinian groups were “responsible for half of the midair plane bombings in the last 20 years” and said Jibril’s group in particular had a “rich history” of such attacks.

He said Jibril’s followers were linked to the Feb. 21, 1970, downing of a Swissair plane by an in-flight explosion, and on the same day unsuccessfully attempted to blow up an Austrian Airlines plane.

In 1971 and 1972, Jibril guerrillas made three attempts to detonate a bomb in Israel’s El-Al planes, two in Rome and one in London. In one case, the bomb was hidden in a record player.

“They usually use naive carriers, people who don’t suspect. In the case of Jibril, female tourists were befriended by Jibril’s men and asked to take a parcel to Israel,” he said.