U.S. Secretly Aids Anti-Terror Units : Use of Foreign Teams Circumvents Legal Strictures Against Americans

In one of the most closely held U.S. intelligence and military programs of the last decade, the United States has covertly trained counterterrorism squads in dozens of countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The United States has turned to training foreign forces as proxies because of the legal, political and logistical difficulties in deploying its own counterterrorism units overseas.

The training programs are a means of circumventing laws against foreign covert actions, U.S. inability to strike swiftly against terrorists thousands of miles away and the reluctance of host governments to allow U.S. forces to operate on their soil.

Some examples:

--On July 8, 1983, Sudanese commandos stormed the hideout of Libyan-backed rebels who two weeks earlier had seized two American missionaries and three other Westerners.

Commandos on Sidelines

On the sidelines orchestrating the dramatic rescue were two members of Delta Force, the elite Army unit created in 1979 to combat the growing threat of terrorism. Just three months earlier, Delta had completed a secret counterterrorism training program for the Sudanese troops.

All five hostages came out alive.

--On June 5, 1988, German Embassy employees in La Paz, Bolivia, spotted several strange men on the grounds. Bolivian police rushed to the scene with bomb-sniffing dogs provided by the United States. Weeks earlier, the unit had finished a bomb detection course sponsored by the State Department’s anti-terrorism assistance program.

A high-explosive bomb was uncovered, and a suspect was arrested.

--On May 30, 1989, Salvadoran troops raided a San Salvador safe house of guerrillas from the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front. The Salvadoran unit, which was in the midst of a special counterterrorism training course from U.S. Army Green Berets, seized a massive cache of weapons and explosives as their American advisers looked on.

Salvadoran and U.S. officials said the discovery preempted a series of terrorist attacks on key government installations and, possibly, leading politicians.

Never Revealed Before

The American role in these secret operations and numerous others involving U.S.-trained foreign forces has never before been revealed.

“From an embryo just 10 years ago, our counterterrorism training program has gone through enormous expansion,” said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who like most other current and former officials willing to discuss these secret programs asked not to be identified by name. “Virtually everyone is now in on the action--all branches of the military, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, even the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration).”

Since the creation of Delta Force, America’s first secret counterterrorism unit, its biggest single problem has not been fighting terrorists but, rather, overcoming limitations on its use imposed by American policy-makers and foreign governments unwilling to surrender their sovereignty to U.S. military forces.

Unwelcome in Algeria

During the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, a Delta team was flown to the Mediterranean for a possible rescue attempt, only to be told by Algeria, where the plane made two stops during an 8,000-mile odyssey, that the American commandos would not be welcome on Algerian soil.

The Algerian reaction, according to a frustrated former military officer, was typical. “Every time we’ve gotten close,” he said, “we’ve been held off.”

And even when host governments are willing to allow U.S. troops to operate there, American reluctance to act often grounds the commandos.

“Whether it’s Delta, FBI, CIA, even DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), every time you start talking about crossing international borders, the State Department begins to get nervous,” said Vaughan S. Forrest, a special operations specialist on the staff of Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.).

“Training other people to do your work is the lawyerly approach” designed to absolve the U.S. government of responsibility to move against terrorists, Forrest complained. “But you have to be willing to act to protect your own people. You’ve got to have somebody willing to say ‘Go.’ ”

Limits Police Training

American overseas training programs have been circumscribed by a law that forbids U.S. military training of foreign police forces. Congress enacted that law in 1974, after U.S.-trained security troops in several Latin American countries carried out massive programs of torture, murder and “disappearances” of dissidents. Now, U.S. military units can only train other military units and U.S. civilian agencies can only train other police forces.

The CIA’s covert operations have also been limited by laws passed in the mid-1970s, particularly by the requirement that all such operations, including training missions, must be reported to Congress.

To accommodate the restrictions, U.S. military units, which have congressional oversight on budget matters but not on operations, are now creating anti-terrorism squads that can operate when and where U.S forces cannot. The foreign units’ operations, however, are often under close American supervision.

During the July, 1984, hijacking of a Venezuelan aircraft to Curacao, for example, Delta Force advisers were actually on the tarmac during the lightning strike shortly after midnight by a Delta-Force-trained Venezuelan unit. Delta flew in equipment for the operation from its base at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Some insiders claim the Americans were even dressed in Venezuelan military uniforms.

Four Americans were among the 79 passengers and crew rescued.

Officially, the United States has not acknowledged the use of Delta Force--or even its existence--since the disastrous 1980 hostage rescue attempt in Iran. But Delta and its Navy counterpart, Seal Team 6, have been deployed in a variety of unusual ways and unlikely places, even within the United States.

Fear of terrorist attacks led to the dispatch of both Delta Force and Seal Team 6 to the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and the 1986 celebration in New York of the Statue of Liberty’s centennial, according to former officers in the secret units.

To evade restrictions on domestic use of the military, the government “legalized” the commandos through various means, including deputizing troops as U.S. marshals, the sources said.

“We’ve been used much more than the public knows,” said a former Navy Seal. “We’re involved in a few operations every year, some in an advisory capacity, others directly.”

Their success in the security missions at Los Angeles and New York led the South Korean government to request counterterrorism training for its forces before the 1988 Olympics. In one incident at the 1988 games, a U.S.-trained Korean security team discovered a man carrying a bomb into one of the Olympic sporting events.

Training Needed

The South Koreans were highly rated in part because of their discipline and their continual training. “These are perishable skills if you don’t continue to train for two or three hours every day,” explained a retired senior U.S. military official. “Not many countries can afford to maintain units like that.”

As good as the Koreans were, however, American advisers from both Delta Force and Seal Team 6 stayed in Seoul until the games were over, observing and coordinating communications and intelligence.

“There were other cases too that no one has publicized,” another U.S. official said. “There’s no question that their training prevented a number of incidents, big and small, and several potential deaths.”

But U.S. training and supervision do not ensure success. Poor discipline, bungled communications and faulty intelligence can lead to disaster.

An example was an Egyptian commando unit, one of the first foreign forces to be trained by Delta in the early 1980s. After U.S. advisers left, the Egyptian force remained intact.

In November, 1985, the Egyptians dispatched a team to Malta where hijackers had taken an EgyptAir Boeing 737 with 98 passengers aboard. The hijackers were threatening to kill one passenger every 10 minutes until their demands were met.

Fire Into Plane

The rescue quickly turned into a debacle. The poorly disciplined Egyptians blew open the cargo door of the plane and started shooting up the interior of the plane without knowing who or where the terrorists were. The terrorists returned their fire and threw three phosphorous grenades that filled the cabin with dense, toxic fumes.

When the smoke cleared, 56 people aboard the jetliner were dead, many from smoke inhalation, some from the Egyptian commandos’ bullets.

Malta had earlier told the United States that participation of Delta Force in the rescue would not be welcome--an indication of how controversial the legendary unit had become in many Third World countries.

After the disaster, one victim’s family threatened to sue the United States. “They charged that the unit was American-trained and therefore the U.S. was ultimately responsible,” said a military lawyer familiar with the case.

Egypt later requested more counterterrorism training from the United States. The request was denied because military analysts had determined that the Egyptian unit was insufficiently disciplined to maintain readiness.

The United States is selective about which units it trains and what tactics and technologies it supplies, officials said.

“A lot of countries won’t get training not only because we don’t want them to have access to our tactics, but they may use them domestically in death squads,” a former Seal said.

Curriculum Varies

There is no single, standardized curriculum, other officials added. Rather, the training is tailored to the region and the nature of the threat.

Countries must qualify for different levels of sophistication in training in weapons, tactics, communications and intelligence, officials said. Some countries are denied any assistance, and even NATO allies are not privy to all of the U.S. special forces’ secrets.

“Delta trains on ground operations, the Seals on situations like oil platforms or on ships like the Achille Lauro,” said a former senior Pentagon official. “We work with the host country on areas where they feel vulnerable. They work on problems like hostage (and) barricade crises, hijackings and embassy protection. But there are some techniques that we keep to ourselves.”

A secret CIA training program for a Lebanese counterterrorism unit backfired with deadly results. In 1985, elements of CIA-trained Lebanese unit passed along its new expertise in explosives to agents of a Christian militia unit, which planted a car bomb aimed at Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual leader of the Hezbollah, the radical Shiite group linked with several terrorist attacks and hostage abductions.

The bomb exploded on a crowded West Beirut street near Fadlallah’s home, killing more than 80 civilians. Fadlallah was not home and escaped injury.

Aside from Delta and the Seals, other special U.S. units, from the Army’s Special Forces (known popularly as the Green Berets) to the State Department’s diplomatic security unit, have trained police, paramilitary and military units around the globe.

Train With Counterparts

U.S. special units also train jointly with their counterparts, such as Germany’s GSG-9, Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS) 22nd Regiment and other secret squads in France, Israel and Australia.

One of the broadest training missions is conducted by the State Department’s Anti-terrorism Assistance (ATA) Program. The office last year trained officials of 38 countries, ranging from the small Caribbean island of Antigua to Togo in West Africa to Turkey, a NATO ally.

The training, mostly carried out in the United States, varies from a week to three months and is exclusively for police forces charged with protecting local officials and foreign diplomats.

A U.S. official familiar with the program said it pays dividends not only in terms of added protection of U.S. diplomats overseas but also in shared intelligence and agreements on joint action against future terrorist acts.

The program bore fruit on Jan. 2, 1988, when an Athens newspaper received an anonymous tip reporting that a bomb had been placed at the house of a U.S. diplomat. A recently trained Greek anti-terrorism squad found and disarmed the bomb.

Peruvians Defuse Bomb

In November, 1988, a Peruvian security unit that had received U.S. and Western European training found and defused a bomb planted by leftist guerrillas intended for Peruvian President Alan Garcia.

While ATA concentrates primarily on bomb detection and protection of officials and installations, U.S. military units train foreign forces in hostage rescue, hijackings and close-quarters shooting.

Military training also includes communications, intelligence and small-unit tactics. A typical U.S. special operations team, for example, includes only about a dozen members.

Perhaps the most difficult lesson to teach, operators say, is the importance of current intelligence and an awareness that a quiet period does not mean that the terrorist threat has diminished.

As Lebanon became a more dangerous place for Americans in the early 1980s, Delta was dispatched to provide protection for the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and its officers.

Shortly after their arrival, Delta advisers asked Lebanese security guards that the cobblestone embassy entrance be blocked off by vehicles to limit access. But after several weeks with no serious problems, the local guards, who were responsible for exterior security at all foreign missions, protested that they were capable of protecting the grounds and that the vehicles were a nuisance. The vehicles were removed.

On April 18, 1983, a Shiite extremist drove a bomb-laden van into the drive, ramming it into the embassy and killing 63 Americans and Lebanese.