G-7 Leaders Urge Anti-Terror Steps

Led by France and the United States, the world’s seven leading industrial democracies jointly declared their condemnation of terrorism Thursday night in the wake of this week’s bombing in Saudi Arabia and ordered top officials to draw up more effective defenses as early as next month.

French President Jacques Chirac said the upcoming security meeting in Paris, of foreign ministers and top security officials, is intended “to identify the steps which will bolster our fight against terrorism.”

The bombing Tuesday at a U.S. military housing complex, which took 19 American lives, cast a shadow across the opening of the annual meeting of the Group of 7.

President Clinton used a midday visit to Perouges, a tourist-fed village that has known 12th century siege and World War II resistance, to focus his partners on the once-distant threat of terrorism and the modern, global dangers it poses.

And by the time the leaders of the seven economic giants sat down to their summit-opening dinner Thursday night at the Hotel de Ville, Lyons’ elaborate city hall, their aides had drafted an opening statement that underscored their condemnation of terrorism.

“There must be no excuse or exception in bringing its perpetrators to justice,” the declaration said.

Nevertheless, even as Clinton predicted that the group would support his year-old call for 40 specific anti-terrorism steps before it adjourns on Saturday, the summit’s condemnation of terrorism echoes a similar statement issued when the leaders met a year ago in Halifax, Canada.

In addition, complaints in Canada and Europe about U.S. efforts to stem trade with Libya and Iran, accused of sponsoring terrorism, underline the differences that remain and the difficulty in finding a common, effective approach.

As the Group of 7 grappled with how to combat terrorism, FBI agents in Dhahran, working in 100-degree heat, plowed through mounds of concrete and twisted metal at the King Abdulaziz Air Base in their search for clues to the identities of Tuesday’s bombers.

The 40 agents, including some veteran investigators who probed the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, are to stay in Saudi Arabia for several weeks.

U.S. officials said Thursday that the Saudi air base had been the target of threatening activities before Tuesday’s bombing, the Washington Post reported today.

Pistol shots were fired at the complex, an attempt was made to crash through the perimeter fence, photographs were taken and other forms of surveillance were noted by the guards there--activities that occurred as recently as one day before the bombing, the officials said.

The remains of the blast’s victims, meanwhile, arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and were received by top military officials, including Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Air Force’s chief of staff pinned a Purple Heart to each of the 19 flag-draped coffins at a private, plane-side ceremony.

In Germany, the first planeload of Americans wounded in the attack arrived early today at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the main U.S. military hospital in Europe. Military officials said they prefer to have the seriously injured treated in American-run facilities.

Those military personnel who remained in Dhahran were offered pastoral and psychological counseling. Senior Airman Samuel Aponte said Thursday that he hasn’t been able to sleep since the blast, plagued by memories of the carnage. “I just tried not to think about what I saw,” he said.

Early today, U.S. Air Force pilots stationed in Saudi Arabia resumed flights over southern Iraq for the first time since the attack. French, British and Saudi personnel had been taking up the slack. The pilots’ mission is to restrain Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in southern Iraq by enforcing a “no fly” zone south of the 32nd parallel.

Following the bombing, U.S. and Saudi officials have reiterated their commitment to military cooperation, and U.S. fighter squadrons continued to be deployed to Saudi Arabia from U.S. bases this week.

In Lyons, the summit’s Declaration on Terrorism called for efforts to thwart terrorists’ fund-raising, planning and procurement of weapons.

“Special attention should be paid to the threat of utilization of nuclear, biological and chemical materials, as well as toxic substances, for terrorist purposes,” the declaration said.

Earlier in the day, Clinton spoke to several hundred townspeople in the cobblestone town square of Perouges, 20 miles from Lyons on a hillside at the confluence of the Rhone and Ain rivers.

“We will not rest in our efforts to discover who is responsible, to track them down and to bring them to justice,” he said of those involved in carrying out the Dhahran attack.

But it was essentially the same message Clinton has delivered in the two days since the attack, and the limited nature of the course available to the administration is reflected in the emphasis it is placing on the 40 steps that had been part of the international agenda for a year.

Those are intended to combat money-laundering and drug smuggling--some of which is believed to support terrorism--and other crimes.

“The future of our children depends on our success in this effort,” Clinton said.

Linking the threat of terrorism to the underlying themes of the summit, Clinton told his audience that technological advances and the rapid flow of information, money and people across national borders--elements that are central to the developing global economy--also “make all of us more open to common dangers--crime, drug trafficking and terrorism.”

“To meet these challenges, we must show strength and steadiness and judgment and flexibility,” he said. “If we all work together, we can face these terrible new threats to our security successfully.”

As he met in private sessions with other leaders--first with Chirac, then with British Prime Minister John Major and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto--the attack in Saudi Arabia, although not central to the agenda, was not far away.

Posing for photographers at the start of his session with Chirac, Clinton said in response to a shouted question that “the casualties were far smaller than they would have been had not the security precautions been taken” to enhance protection at the complex.

Asked why the GIs had not been better protected, Clinton said: “They [were] behind a fence that gave them a 35-yard cushion, and that bomb was just bigger than anyone calculated could be gotten in that close to the building.”

The village where Clinton spoke was established in 1130 and withstood the turmoil of the French Revolution--a linden tree planted in 1792 as the “tree of liberty” shaded the president’s audience.

Revived as a tourist mecca, it celebrated Clinton’s arrival--perhaps the biggest stir since a version of “The Three Musketeers” was filmed here--with clutches of red, white and blue French and U.S. flags.

The seven summit leaders--Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, in addition to the three who met Clinton on Thursday--face an agenda today that includes economic issues, Bosnia-Herzegovina and more discussions of terrorism. At the end of the day, their talks will expand to include Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin as he stands in for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, who is campaigning for reelection.

Times staff writer Paul Richter in Dhahran contributed to this report.