The World - News from Jan. 22, 1989

Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Talas alleged that Israel duped an American soldier into carrying the bomb that blew up a Pan Am jetliner over Scotland on Dec. 21, killing 270 people. “An agent of Israeli intelligence, Mossad, handed him the bomb-laden bag to carry in return for $300,000, claiming it was diamonds worth $500,000 needed to be smuggled into the United States,” Talas said in an interview published in Kuwait’s daily Al-Qabas. British investigators determined the plane was destroyed by a bomb placed in the luggage hold, but they have not said who was responsible. In Israel, a Foreign Ministry spokesman called Talas’ allegation “ridiculous and malicious.”