Syria Said to Plan Move on Flight 103 Suspects

The State Department on Thursday said it has obtained a commitment from Syrian President Hafez Assad to crack down on the Damascus-based Palestinian terrorist group that remains the prime suspect in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 if he is presented with “firm evidence” of its involvement.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States has been told “at the highest levels” of the Syrian government that “if it is presented with firm evidence that any group or individuals within its purview are responsible for Pan Am 103, the Syrian government will take action against them.”

” . . .To date, we’re not satisfied with the Syrian government’s responses, and we think (it) can do more,” Boucher said. “We have discussed Pan Am 103 with the Syrians on a number of occasions in diplomatic channels. We have urged their full cooperation in finding those responsible.”

Administration sources said that Secretary of State James A. Baker III had personally approved Thursday’s statement on Syrian responsibility for terrorist groups operating from Damascus.

The statement was the clearest public indication yet that the U.S. government is convinced that elements of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command led by Ahmed Jibril were behind the midair bombing of a Pan American World Airways Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The bombing and jet crash caused the deaths of 270 people at Lockerbie, Scotland, last December.

Jibril’s headquarters are in Damascus, and a number of his training camps are located in Syrian-controlled areas of eastern Lebanon.

No U.S. official has suggested that Syria was responsible for the Pan Am bombing. Rather, the prevailing U.S. view is that Iran ordered it in retaliation for the accidental shooting down by a U.S. Navy warship of an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf in July, 1988.