Terror Resurgence Feared as Diplomats Are Targeted : Violence: U.S. and Western intelligence agencies caught off guard by attack on Israelis in Argentina.

The bombings of Israeli diplomatic facilities in Argentina and Turkey over the last 10 days are stirring new fears about a resurgence of international terrorism after one of the quietest years since modern terrorism began in 1969.

Pessimistic officials and Western counterterrorism experts say they now expect a new round of attacks, many linked to the decade-long conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim community. That struggle has escalated since last month’s assassination by Israeli commandos of Sheik Abbas Moussawi, a Shiite Muslim leader believed to have been head of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, or Party of God.

But because of the imitative nature of terrorist groups and tactics, U.S. officials also are concerned about the potential for attacks by other groups on a broad range of targets.

“You have to worry about other people being emboldened by terrorist attacks,” a U.S. counterterrorism official said.

Admittedly caught off guard by Tuesday’s bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, U.S. and Western intelligence agencies are now stepping up their counterterrorism efforts, scrambling to trace the movements of operatives from a host of Middle East countries, U.S. sources said.

The goal is to glean information about Tuesday’s attack and another bombing at the Israeli Embassy in Turkey earlier this month, as well as to thwart impending incidents against other targets.

The State Department announced Thursday that the United States has agreed to assist both Argentina and Israel in identifying the perpetrators of the Buenos Aires bombing. U.S. officials also renewed a Feb. 19 advisory to Americans abroad expressing concern about possible terrorist attacks in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, where Hezbollah has the most extensive presence and networks.

The State Department also issued a warning to Americans living or working in Libya to leave immediately, in anticipation of U.N. passage of a resolution Monday calling for sanctions against the Libyan government for refusing to turn over suspects in the December, 1988, bombing of a Pan American Airways jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.

U.S. sources said the advisory was designed to encourage U.S. citizens to leave before air travel becomes difficult or impossible and does not signal any plans to attack Libya.

Some of the venues most vulnerable to future terrorist attacks, experts believe, are in Third World countries, where security is inadequate and easily penetrated.

The unprecedented tightening of security and the coordination of intelligence before and during the Persian Gulf War have made Western nations more difficult to penetrate or attack, according to U.S. experts.

“Traditional sites are not being hit,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist at the RAND Corp. think tank in Santa Monica.

The latest episodes were preceded by an unusually low period of terrorist activity. The annual State Department terrorism survey, scheduled to be released later this month, reports 557 international incidents in 1991. While the figure is up from 455 incidents in 1990, the vast majority of attacks were related to the Gulf War and were comparatively small and unsuccessful.

“Other than the Gulf War, everything was down. The number of Americans killed in international terrorism incidents was down to seven. Last year was really a pretty good year in terms of combatting terrorism,” a U.S. official said.

Added Hoffman: “With the release of American hostages (in Lebanon last year), there was a general euphoria and a feeling that we’d turned the corner on terrorism. But the bombing (on Tuesday) indicated that we had a false sense of security.

“Terrorism is a never-ending struggle. It’s something we’re going to have to learn to live with.”

The last two cycles of terrorism emanating from the Middle East were between 1983 and 1985, years marked by a wave of suicide bombings, hijackings and hostage seizures, and 1988 and 1989, a period most notable for the tragic bombings of U.S. and French passenger airliners.

Poor, developing countries have long been arenas for attacks. The first modern American hostage, U.S. Ambassador Charles Elbrick, was abducted by leftist guerrillas in Brazil in 1969. But the kidnapers’ demands were linked to domestic conflicts. Elbrick finally was freed after the release of Brazilian political prisoners.

Only recently has the Third World become a venue for international terrorism by Middle East extremists.

Since the late 1960s, for example, only about a dozen terrorism attacks in Latin America have been linked to the Middle East, according to Hoffman.

Third World countries generally had not been favored by terrorists as sites for their depredations because they were likely to have less international impact than deeds perpetrated in major Western countries, according to Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA national intelligence officer for the Middle East. Fuller and others said that the Third World is now a more “convenient” place to conduct terrorism.

Hoffman suggested that Africa could become another Third World arena for international terrorism, in part because of looser security and in part because Sudan has recently become a major center for extremist bases and training camps.

Also, several African countries have renewed diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in recent years after a long period of diplomatic chill.

In the Argentine bombing, which so far has left at least 25 people dead, U.S. counterterrorism officials said that the claim of responsibility by Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed underground group with headquarters in Lebanon, is “credible.”

“The Argentine and Turkish attacks had that feel to it. I also don’t remember Islamic Jihad making many claims that were false,” one U.S. official said.

Several U.S. officials and private terrorism experts fault Israel for the escalation in its conflict with Shiite Muslim extremists, which dates to the 1982-85 Israeli occupation of Lebanon.

After the Israeli invasion in 1982, Lebanon’s Shiite community generally embraced the Israelis for forcing Palestinians to leave traditional Shiite lands. But Israel’s “iron fist” policy during the occupation backfired, alienating the Shiites, who began mobilizing opposition and carried out attacks against Israeli troops.

“The killing of (Sheik) Moussawi was a real mistake,” said a former director of the State Department’s counterterrorism office. “You’d think they would have learned by now. They’re only inviting this kind of attack.”

The Hezbollah organization believed headed by Moussawi has been linked by experts to Islamic Jihad.

U.S. experts also find credible Islamic Jihad’s threat to continue and to widen its campaign against Israel, meaning a further escalation in the region’s violence could be in prospect. And they also doubt that Israeli revenge attacks, hinted at by Israeli officials Wednesday, will cow the Lebanese.

Said Fuller, “This is a war that will be very difficult for the Israelis to win.”