2 to Be Charged in Pan Am Bombing : Lockerbie disaster: The Libyans are expected to be indicted today for the 1988 attack on Flight 103 that killed 270. Both reportedly are intelligence operatives.

Federal indictments are expected to be announced today against at least two Libyans for the December, 1988, bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the first charges in an exhaustive three-year international investigation of the incident that took 270 lives, sources said Wednesday.

The indictments would mark a major step in bringing to justice the terrorists believed responsible for the bombing of the London-to-New York flight over the tiny town of Lockerbie, Scotland, four days before Christmas.

Acting Atty. Gen. William P. Barr, asked about the investigation during his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, said: “We’re making great progress, and I think the American people ultimately will be very proud of the job done by the federal agencies involved.”

But Barr told Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) that he could say no more because the investigation--one of the Justice Department’s highest priorities--is still under way.

Other sources said one of those expected to be named in the indictment is a Libyan intelligence officer, Ibrahim Naeli, who also is being sought by French authorities in the Sept. 19, 1989, bombing of UTA Flight 772 over the Sahara. That flight was blown up shortly after it left the Chadian capital of N’Djamena on a fight from Brazzaville, Congo, to Paris. The 170 victims included seven Americans.

The identity of the other suspect could not be learned. However, the sources emphasized that both are regarded as intelligence operatives; they are not believed to be those in the Libyan government suspected of masterminding the attack on the Pan Am flight.

“You can only go as far as probable cause establishes, but this (the investigation) is not over,” said a source knowledgeable about the case.

The indictment is expected to be returned by a federal grand jury in Washington, but it is unclear how U.S. authorities would bring the accused to trial, short of arranging their kidnaping. One source indicated that the indictment already has been returned but is under seal.

The bombing of a U.S. airliner is a crime under federal law, but Libya has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Libya has denied involvement in the Pan Am and UTA bombings.

Shortly before the announcement in Washington today, FBI agents are scheduled to meet with families of those who died in the crash and brief them on the charges and future direction of the investigation, sources said.

By conducting an inch-by-inch search of miles of land surrounding Lockerbie, authorities established that the bomb had been concealed in a Toshiba radio cassette player. The explosion and crash killed all 259 passengers and crew aboard and 11 people on the ground.

U.S., Scottish and German investigators initially suspected the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in the Pan Am bombing. They were thought to have been commissioned by the Iranian government to target an American plane in retaliation for the accidental 1988 U.S. downing of an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf that killed 290 people.

U.S. authorities, led by the FBI, have since grown convinced that the Pan Am bombing was carried out by the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi out of revenge for the 1986 U.S. bombing of Tripoli. About 40 people, including Kadafi’s adopted daughter, were killed in that air assault.

“The notion that the 1986 bombing of Tripoli deterred Libyan terrorism is greatly flawed,” a leading counterterrorism expert concluded.

The U.S. bombing raid was undertaken in retaliation for a bomb attack in April, 1986, at a West Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. soldiers. German police made an arrest that they said pointed to a Syrian connection to the incident, but the State Department insisted that the United States had clear evidence of Libyan culpability.

U.S. authorities believe that the attack on Flight 103 was orchestrated by Abdallah Senoussi, Kadafi’s brother-in-law who is considered the No. 2 man in Libyan intelligence. But he is not expected to be named in the indictment because investigators have not collected sufficient evidence to meet the standard for a grand jury indictment, one source said.

Senoussi and three other Libyan intelligence officials, including Naeli, were named in arrest warrants Oct. 30 by a French investigative magistrate in connection with the 1989 French UTA bombing. Forensic connections between the UTA and Pan Am bombings have been established.

Sources familiar with the Pan An investigation said that the trail that led to the Libyan suspects paralleled that in the French case but was not uncovered as a result of the French investigation.

Former CIA Director William H. Webster was among officials who expressed confidence that those responsible for the Pan Am bombing eventually would be identified. He said at a news conference May 31 that the investigation “has been pieced together like a mosaic, with sometimes new information changing views on the exact players and the matter in which they played.”

Some of the families of those killed in the Pan Am crash have complained that the Justice Department has been “whitewashing” Syria and Iran in its investigation so that the inquiry would not interfere with improving relations with those nations.

But a source familiar with the focus on the Libyans said that it has resulted from the weight of the evidence, some of which will be revealed in the indictment to be announced today.