Gadaffi, trainer and financier of terrorists

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33425, 5 January 1974, Page 11

Gadaffi, trainer and financier of terrorists

(By a special correspondent of "The Times," through N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON'. January 4. Colonel Gadaffi of Libya has formed his own groups of Palestinian terrorists, according to reliable sources in Kuwait. It is understood that members of one group were recently expelled from Britain.

Military and diplomatic sources in Brussels say that the Libyan leader is involved in the financing of many terrorist organisations in different countries. They include the Irish Republican Army, which is receiving military aid. and possibly training, to the tune of about JNZ 1,500,000. There is neither consistency nor a discernible pat'ern behind Colonel Gadaffi’s generosity. Possible motives are his ambition to establish himself as Nasser’s successor in the leaderhip of the Arab world, and pique at Egyptian and Syrian plans to attack 1-rael m October. But above

all, he is determined to wreck the Geneva peace talks between Israel and Egypt, and keep the war going “if necessary for a thousand vears.’’ Apart from helping the 1.R.A., the Colonel’s regime has allocated about s69m to> Black September, the clan- 1 destine wing of Al Fatah, and s3om to other Fedayeen groups. Libyan aid has also goneto the anti-Ethiopian Eritrean Liberation Front (about , $15.3m), and to opposition groups in Syria (about S2m), . Somalia (about $767,000), the People's Democratic Repub- , lie of Yemen in what used to[, be Aden (about $ 1.53 m).., Chad (about sl.Bm), Morocco; (about s3m). Tunisia (about' $1.53m). Thailand (about.. $460,000). the Philippines (about s3m), and Panama | (about $2.3m). At least two of the govemments against which Col- | onel Gadaffi is financing opposition groups are themselves in receipt of Libyan assistance: Somalia and Syria. - '

i More surprising still, pos- : sibly, is the authenticated report that a good half of the Arab oil “leaked’’ to the • United States since the partial embargo has come from Libya. Again, pique against I “brother” Arabs is one explanation of this oddity, but ■ another is the absolute need I for the Colonel to keep his i oil revenues high so he can continue to finance terrorism. The massacre at Rome Airport in mid-December. according to sources in Brussels, was organised by a group financed by Colonel Gadaffi, who in a speech on October 7, 1972. praised the Japanese terrorists for the massacre at Lod Airport. In another speech last April, he denounced the established Palestinian groups as not militant enough. He then invited renegades from one of the most extreme groups, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, to go to Libya, where he put [them into training camps under his personal direction, i This new, Libyan-financed

group, known as the ‘National Youth for the Liberation of Palestine,” though originally a breakaway faction of the Popular Front, is now, it appears, a Libyan branch of Black September. Apart from the Colonel himself, the Revolutionary Command Council members directly involved are Major Muhammad Najim, Major Almunin Huni, and Major Becair Hawwadi, director of the Libyan Arab Socialist Union, the country’s only political organisation. A special committee to support terrorism w r as set up, consisting of Major Awad Hamsa, Major Abubakir lunis, and Major Abdullah Meheishy, with Mr Ahmad Al | Gaffur as chairman. Mr Gaffur carries a Lebanese j passport, and travels frequently to plan and co-ordin-ate the group’s terrorist; activities. He is also known as: "Abu Mahmud” and “Salem

Ahmed Tajuri.” Shortly after its formation on April 9. the group launched its first operation — the attack on an Israeli

airliner, and on the Israel Ambassador’s residence in Nicosia. One of the attackers was killed. Seven were arrested, but were later released by the Cypriot authorities. The same group was responsible for killing four people and wounding 55 at Athens Airport on August 5. Five members were arrested exactly a month later by Italian police, who found two Russian-made portable anti-aircraft missiles in a flat near Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport. They were intended for an attack on an Israeli airliner. The December massacre in Rome, in which 32 people died, was also planned in Tripoli. The original plan jwas to assassinate Dr Kissinger, the American Secretary’ of State, in Beirut, through an attack on his aircraft with sub-machine-guns land hand grenades.

The Lebanese authorities foiled this plot by diverting the aircraft to the military i airport at Rayak, 45 miles I east of Beirut. The point was

not so much to kill Dr Kissinger as to prevent the convening of the ArabIsraeli conference at Geneva on December 18.

When the plot was thwarted, Colonel Gadaffi ordered the group to attack Rome Airport instead — the attack to coincide with the opening of the conference.

The idea was seize hostiages. Instead the terrorists i set a Pan American jumbo I jet on fire, and raked the iairport lounge with machinejgun fire before hijacking a Lufthansa aircraft and flying Ito Athens. The terrorists are now held in Kuwait, where according to local sources, they have revealed Colonel Gadaffi’s involvment under questionI ing. The news deeply shocked the Syrian and Lebanese governments when it reached them through diplomatic channels. According to the .terrorists, their weapons and [support equipment were delivered in the Libyan diploImatic pouch and a Libyan diplomat personally sent off I five of the terrorists with

final orders from Madrid to Rome.

A macabre touch was that Colonel Gadaffi offered the group a bonus of about $380,000 in the form of an insurance payable to their families in the event of their deaths.

He promised to organise additional terrorist operations to free them if they were imprisoned. He is now rumoured to be putting pressure on the Kuwait Government, and on the Palestine Liberation Organisation to allow the terrorists to travel to Libya. For a very good reason, however, the terrorists may not welcome this possibility: they may have talked too much. In particular, their i revelations are said to include I the information that other groups financed by Libya and trained under Colonel Gadaffi are now moving into various European countries to continue their struggle against the peace talks. And beyond Europe lie tempting targets in Africa, Asia and the Americas.