Arafat Unaware of Raid, Israeli Suspects : Mideast: Intelligence chief says the PLO leader probably was not informed. Another official reports the U.S. Embassy may have been a target.

Yasser Arafat, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization, probably did not know beforehand about the seaborne raid by Palestinian guerrillas on Israel, the nation’s military intelligence chief said in an interview published Friday.

“We don’t have information pointing to the fact that he knew ahead of time,” Maj. Gen. Amnon Shahak said in an interview with the daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot.

Shahak also said the apparent target of the raiders Wednesday were recent Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union, but another high-ranking Israeli official said that the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, as well as hotels and stores, were the targets.

Maps carried by the guerrillas indicated that killings would be carried out in the densely populated Tel Aviv beachfront hotel district where the embassy is located, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Locations circled on the maps indicated a large Tel Aviv department store as another potential target, he said.

“During the debriefing (of the guerrillas) . . . it was established that one of the targets in the vicinity of the hotel district was the U.S. Embassy,” the source said. “Wherever they can, they try to accomplish a spectacular mass killing. The U.S. Embassy was a good target that would make headlines.”

Gen. Shahak, in his newspaper interview, said Israel knew “with complete certainty” that the PLO has planned attacks on Soviet Jewish immigrants to Israel “in every possible location and at every opportunity.”

The statement was the first public comment by security officials about threats against Soviet immigrants.

In a communique sent by fax to a Western news agency in Amman, Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Front, the faction of the PLO that claimed responsibility for the attack, denied that the operation was aimed at civilian targets.

“Civilian targets were not the goal of our attacks, and the ‘Jerusalem naval operation’ affirmed that practically because our fighters avoided approaching or touching civilian positions,” the communique claimed.

Shahak’s comment about Arafat contradicted Foreign Ministry officials who claim that Arafat met last week with the raid’s mastermind, Mohammed Abbas, and almost certainly knew of the planned strike. Abbas, also known as Abul Abbas, leads the Palestine Liberation Front.

Four guerrillas were killed and 12 captured when Israel forces thwarted the raid. No Israelis were harmed. The front said Friday in a statement that it will continue its attacks.

Arafat said Thursday the PLO was not involved in the raid but avoided condemning it outright. He said he could not expel Abbas from the elected PLO Executive Committee because: “He was elected in a democratic way by the Palestine National Council, and only the council has a say on that.”

Israel also had accused Libya of helping to mount the strike, and Shahak provided the most detailed account yet of that alleged involvement.

But a Libyan official denied Libyan involvement in the raid.

Shahak said the guerrillas involved in the seaborne raid trained in a camp set aside for them by Libyan authorities on the Mediterranean coast.

“The investigation shows beyond doubt that Libyan military personnel were involved in all stages. . . ,” Shahak said.

Earlier reports had said the guerrillas boarded a Libyan merchant ship in the Libyan port of Benghazi that also transported speedboats to carry out the attack.

“Libyans helped to move the terrorists to the ship. The ship itself had a Libyan crew, and aboard was a Libyan military officer,” Shahak said.