United Effort Stymied Iraqi Terror Threat

Unprecedented international cooperation and the expulsion of more than 100 Iraqi diplomats around the world have prevented Saddam Hussein from delivering on his threat to wage a campaign of terror against America and its allies, U.S. officials believe.

The expulsion of the diplomats and other Iraqi terrorist agents “clearly thwarted his operational capabilities,” said one U.S. official. “We’ve been successful in getting the (suspect) Iraqis expelled, as well as general bad guys.”

The official, who declined to be identified by name or agency, said no one country could claim credit for the apparently successful counterterrorism effort. “We worked together on identifying the bad guys through intelligence and diplomatic channels,” he said.

Further, terrorism experts said last week that lack of a favorable milieu has helped inhibit terrorism in the United States. They said

relatively well-assimilated Middle Eastern ethnic groups are much less likely to give aid or protection to would-be terrorists than Arab or Palestinian groups in Europe.

Even so, counterterrorism officials are worried that widespread wrath over civilian casualties caused by last week’s allied bombing of a structure in Baghdad could provoke incidents of terrorism by individual zealots--the hardest activity to prevent.

“You don’t need a secret cable from Baghdad” ordering individual terrorists to strike, one official said, noting that “the media serve as the conduit.”

The disruption of Hussein’s communications network by the intensive allied air strikes on Baghdad had been cited as a principal reason for the Iraqi leader’s apparent inability to carry out his terrorist threats.

Although about 115 terrorist incidents have been reported worldwide since the U.S.-led coalition launched Operation Desert Storm a month ago, most have appeared isolated and relatively unsophisticated in nature, officials said.

“What we haven’t seen is dedicated, highly trained, cellular terrorism in all the incidents that occurred so far,” said William M. Baker, the assistant FBI director whose responsibilities include overseeing the bureau’s counterterrorist efforts.

None of the incidents reported so far have been inside the United States. Counterterrorism experts attribute the nation’s good fortune to the long lead time available to the FBI and other security agencies to prepare for domestic repercussions from the Persian Gulf War.

The weeks of preparation enabled the FBI to conduct heavy surveillance--electronic and physical--of individuals in the United States who appeared to be allied with terrorist organizations and supportive of Hussein, knowledgeable sources said.

Most experts cautioned, however, that Iraqi-related terrorism still might occur in the United States, and some consider the risk highest during the year or two after the war ends as internal security measures gradually are relaxed.

“We and other people have tightened our security dramatically,” said L. Paul Bremer, former head of the State Department’s counterterrorism office. “That has had a great effect of discouraging terrorism. But it may be that the terrorists will simply wait for the security measures to go back down. These are extremely calculating men.”

“I think the threat of terrorism actually goes up after the war, certainly from the Palestinian radical groups,” Bremer added.

Several U.S. and Canadian experts said they believe that a lack of fundamentalist Muslim commitment to Hussein, a reluctance on the part of leading terrorist organizations to enlist themselves at this stage in a likely losing cause, and perhaps even an ambivalence among some Palestinian leaders, have contributed to the dearth of activity.

Throughout the Gulf conflict, Hussein has tried repeatedly to mobilize devout Muslims to embark on a holy war and to commit acts of terrorism against members of the coalition. But Iraq, long the most secular regime in the 22-member Arab bloc, has never been fully trusted by mainstream or fanatic Muslim groups--partly because of its eight-year war with Iran, which is led by a Muslim fundamentalist regime.

That war, which theoretically involved disputed territory, was in fact widely seen as an effort by Hussein to slow the momentum of Islamic zealotry.

A U.S. counterterrorism official cited the successful thwarting last month of three suspected Arab terrorists in Bangkok as an example of how effective international cooperation can head off a major terrorist action.

On Jan. 20, the State Department issued a travel advisory stating that the government had knowledge of a credible threat involving a possible terrorist action against U.S., Israeli, British and Australian installations in Bangkok. The targets also included U.S.- and European-flag airlines and their offices, and locations where foreigners congregate. The time span of the expected action extended over several days, officials said.

Within a week, Thai security officials tried to deport two Iraqis, Muhammad Ali and Mahmood Muhammad, and one Jordanian, Radi Shammari, after questioning them on suspicion of planning terrorist activities. The U.S. counterterrorist source said the three were trying to carry out the activities detailed in the State Department’s warning.

But the three men, who had been placed on a Thai International flight to Kuala Lumpur, were denied entry in the Malaysian capital and had to be flown back to Bangkok. They then were detained in preventive custody on the strength of intelligence information linking them to weapons and explosives being assembled in Bangkok for an attack against Western targets.

The U.S. counterterrorist official said the three are no longer a danger, but he declined to disclose what had happened to them, noting only that they are no longer in Thailand.

The experts agreed that the long lead time and the well-timed expulsions of Iraqi diplomats have, in the words of Vincent Cannistraro of the National Strategy Information Center, “disrupted the timetable . . . hampered and deterred” the terrorists.

But some of those interviewed called attention to what they consider the lack of a good milieu for terrorism in the United States, as compared to Europe, Asia and Latin America.

“There obviously isn’t as big a domestic threat. The U.S. has excellent domestic law enforcement,” said Philip Huntley, vice president of Argen Inc. in New York.

“But secondly, it’s much easier for terrorists to operate in Europe and the Third World,” he said. “It’s easier for them to get weapons, explosives and personnel across borders there. In many countries, they have, if not already terrorist structures in place, at least sympathizers who can help put such structures in place. Logistically, why run the greater risk in the United States of being apprehended and jeopardizing your organization?”

In addition, “there’s no level of significant sympathy here,” said Dr. James Turner, director of behavioral sciences at the Memorial Medical Center in Savannah, Ga., and a consultant on terrorism.

“The American culture has a tremendous ability to assimilate people and make them part of the system. The (Arab-American groups) have a stake in the country, they have an investment. It’s their country now. In Europe, the Middle Eastern and other outside ethnic groups are not as accepted. They’re on the fringes,” Turner said.

“Terrorists need a lot of passive support, a lot of safehouses, money and materials,” he said, “and we just don’t have that available in this country.”

Martha Crenshaw, an expert on terrorism at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, noted that the United States has not experienced much international terrorism in the past.

“There’s no infrastructure,” she said. “There is an unwillingness of the ethnic groups to harbor these people. . . . The terrorists themselves are not indigenous Arab-Americans or Palestinian-Americans. And, in any case, it’s much easier for them to operate somewhere else; there are so many American targets abroad.”

FBI officials and a number of other terrorism experts, however, disputed the contention that no infrastructure for Arab terrorism exists in America.

“In the United States, there may not be much of a terrorist following,” said Yonah Alexander of George Washington University in Washington. “But I believe the Iraqis do have an infrastructure in place--personnel, funding and equipment. They just have not activated it yet.”

Some experts said they have detected a reluctance on the part of some international terrorist organizations to answer Saddam Hussein’s calls for terrorist strikes. Some of these groups, they suggested, might be more inclined to strike after the war after Hussein and his regime were out of the way.

“I think it’s quite clear, it isn’t the people inspired by Islamic fundamentalism that are the terrorists of this war,” said David Rapaport, a UCLA specialist in religious-based terrorism. “They are not inspired by Hussein. They can’t believe he’s religious.

Observed Robert Kupperman of the Center for Strategy and International Studies in Washington: “Almost everybody I know, including myself, believed that there would be a hell of a lot of terrorism in Europe, but there was far lower probability it would migrate to the United States. The lack of major episodes anywhere, however, has been a surprise.”

Ostrow and Wright reported from Washington and Reich from Los Angeles.

BACKGROUND

The vast majority of terrorist incidents occurring in recent years have taken place abroad. The worst suspected terrorist incident in the United States took place Dec. 29, 1975, when a bomb exploded in the baggage claim area at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 people and injuring 75. Although investigators suspected that Croatian nationalists were responsible, this was never proven. No arrests were made. Bruce Hoffman of the RAND Corp. said just over 4,000 people were killed worldwide in the 1980s in terrorist incidents. In most years, about 400 incidents have been reported worldwide.