Lebanese, 3 Women With Mideast Friends Said to Head List : Pan Am Probers Focus on Bomb Carrier

Investigators are focusing on about half a dozen people in their effort to identify the passenger who may have unwittingly carried the bomb that destroyed Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, last Dec. 21, sources close to the case said Thursday.

Leading the list are a Lebanese Shiite Muslim who was returning to his family in Dearborn, Mich., and three women who have male friends in the Middle East, said the sources, who asked not to be identified by name.

The Lebanese, the only Middle Eastern national on board the London-to-New York flight, was Khalid Jaafar, a student whose family has lived in Dearborn for several years and who was in West Germany visiting friends.

Re-Emerging Line

Earlier, U.S. investigators played down the theory that Jaafar was duped into carrying the explosive that downed Flight 103, killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground. But that line of investigation has re-emerged as the principal one, according to an official close to the case.

Jaafar’s father, who runs a Detroit gas station, repeatedly has insisted that his son was not involved.

Jaafar’s family has relatives living near Baalbek in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command maintains bases there, according to Bush Administration sources, and about 1,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards have operated there since 1982.

The two groups have been known to cooperate before, and U.S. and European intelligence sources suggest that the bombing may have been planned there. The PFLP-GC, headquartered in Syria and led by Ahmed Jibril, tops the list of organizations suspected of carrying out the bombing.

Sources cautioned that they have no solid evidence pointing to Jaafar’s involvement. Indeed, investigators are not even certain whether he had one bag or two. One piece of his luggage, a soft duffel bag, was recovered in fairly good condition, ruling out the possibility that it was close to the powerful explosive.

Investigators also focused on the three women, none of whom was of Middle Eastern origin. They recalled the 1986 incident in which Nezar Hindawi, a Jordanian-born Palestinian, tried to blow up an El Al flight by secreting three pounds of explosive in the luggage of his pregnant Irish girlfriend’s suitcase.

The Flight 103 bombing is so important to the Administration that President Bush will visit Lockerbie on his way back from a European trip that begins May 26, the White House said Thursday.

While investigators work to establish who carried the bomb to the Boeing 747, U.S. and European intelligence services are developing a second list--those suspected of carrying out the bombing, which also includes primarily Middle Eastern nationals, according to counterterrorism sources.

“We are getting convincing evidence about a set of suspects,” a Bush Administration source said.

The list of suspects, one source said, is “limited to a few people,” mainly radical Palestinians and hard-line Iranians whose operational style, movements at the time of the bombing and past associations indicate a possible link with the attack.

“We’re in the process of playing around with connections and links, separating variables and homing in on certain people,” a counterterrorism source said.

Several U.S. sources said evidence is growing that the bombing was carried out by the radical PFLP-GC. But investigators also have indications that a militant faction in Iran either played a major role or served as the mastermind.

Since last October, two PFLP-GC operatives, who were found in possession of radio-cassette player bombs similar to the one suspected of destroying Flight 103, have been jailed in West Germany, and foreign investigators initially discounted their involvement.

But there is increasing evidence that a backup cell was in place to carry out an attack if the first group was apprehended. Investigators are now searching for members of the so-called “Cell B,” although it is widely believed that its members have left Europe, probably for the Middle East, most likely Lebanon.

Despite press reports this week that a PFLP-GC member was cooperating with investigators, Bush Administration sources contend that neither Hafez Dalkamani, the imprisoned PFLP-GC leader of “Cell A,” nor a second jailed operative has assisted the police.

No Imminent Seizures

The narrowing of the investigation’s focus, several sources said, does not signal that authorities are close to apprehending anyone believed to have arranged for the explosive to be put aboard the London-to-New York leg of the flight, which originated in Frankfurt, West Germany, using a smaller 727 aircraft.

Investigators have run into difficulties in linking a key piece of baggage to either passengers or suspects. That means that cracking the case is likely to hinge more on intelligence information and deductions than on forensic evidence.

While the brand of the luggage has been established, investigators have not been able to take the next step of tying it to a specific individual, sources said.

“That’s the knot that has made it difficult for us to proceed,” said a counterterrorism official. “It’s the reason that there’s a stalemate in the on-site investigation.”

In Frankfurt, meanwhile, a Pan Am official said the bombing of Flight 103 will cost the airline about $50 million, the Associated Press reported. That estimate includes the loss of the Boeing 747, a drop in passenger traffic on some routes and the anticipated cost of lawsuits filed after the crash, said Peter T. McHugh, Pan Am’s senior vice president for marketing.