Terror attacks from M.E. drop sharply

Press, 24 April 1987, Page 16

Terror attacks from M.E. drop sharply

■—mm"""" - " - “ j \ '■■■■'* The ‘Economist’ reports that the U.S, raid on Libya seems to have been a success

ON APRIL 15 a year ago a force of American aircraft bombed Colonel Gadaffi’s compound and a handful of other Libyan targets in and around Tripoli and Benghazi. The raid split the Western alliance. Most Americans hoped that strong military action would discourage Libya from supporting terrorism. Many Europeans thought it would be counterproductive. Bombing Libya, they said, would enhance the colonel’s prestige and provoke ferocious retaliation against the West. Who., seems, one year later, to have been right? The answer, a messy one, on balance points America’s way. Terror has continued. In September, five months after the raid, Paris endured a terrorist blitz, gunmen massacred 21 Jews in an Istanbul synagogue and 19 people died in the botched rescue of a hijacked Pan Am airliner at Karachi. But none of these incidents had a clear link with the Libyan Government and none looked like revenge for the American attack. There is instead some evidence that Colonel Gadaffi has scaled down his help for terrorism, and that Middle Eastern groups have carried out fewer attacks in Europe. The American State Department says that its world-wide tally of international terror — terrorist incidents involving nationals of more than one country, in all parts of the world — hardly changed between 1985

( and 1986. But the number of attacks made in Western Europe by groups from the Middle East fell by nearly half, from 74 to 39, with most of the drop coming after the bombing of Libya. The 1986 total includes the Paris bombings carried out in September by the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction (L.A.R.F.), a group with no known Libyan connection. An independent count kept by Britain’s Aberdeen University categorises acts of terrorism differently, but has also reported a big drop — from 83 to 48 — in the number of attacks conducted outside the Middle East by Middle Eastern groups. The university reckons that the' proportion of State-sponsored incidents fell from about 25 per cent to 20 per cent. The American Government sees such figures as proof that its attack helped to cut terrorism. The raid undoubtedly gave Colonel Gadaffi a bad fright. He narrowly escaped being killed, and vanished for two days before resurfacing to claim America’s action as a famous Libyan victory. Despite (or perhaps because of) his truculent speech to the summit of non-aligned countries in Harare in August, his international prestige has waned. Other Arab countries complained loudly, and briefly, about the raid — then left Libya to flounder.

Since then the colonel has bungled his undeclared war in

Chad and shown growing nervousness at home. If the raid was a success, how big a success was it? Not even the Americans think the colonel will give up the terror weapon for ever. And even if he did, the impact on international terror as a whole would be limited. Libya has never been the most prolific sponsor of terrorism: Syria and Iran, most Western Governments agree, have been bigger offenders. So if America wants to argue that the bombing had a deterrent, impact beyond Libya, it must show that it frightened the men in Damascus and Teheran. Here the American case is flimsier. West Germany says Syria masterminded a bomb blast in West Berlin in March, 1986, a month before the Americans struck at Colonel Gadaffi. Two days after they struck, Mr Nezar Hiridawi, a Jordanian working for Syria, tried to blow up an El Al airliner leaving Britain.

Syria may also have played a part in the massacre of Jews in

Istanbul five months later. It seems fair to conclude that the example America made of Libya did not immmediately change minds in Damascus.

Syria’s President Assad probably reckoned last year that his well-armed country, a close ally of the Soviet Union, was safe from an American military attack. Ayatollah Khomeiny knew Iran was: while American jets were showing American firmness over Tripoli, the White House was secretly attempting an arms-for-hostages deal with Teheran. The bombs dropped on vulnerable Libya would have sent a louder signal if America had been consistently tough towards all the States that sponsor terror. There have been signs of Syrian second thoughts, probably encouraged by European actions. Britain broke off diplomatic relations with Syria over the attempt on the El Al airliner; West Germany expelled some Syrian diplomats and imposed economic sanctions after Syria was implicated in the West Berlin bombing.

At Britain’s request, all the members of the European Community except Greece promised to ban arms sales and Stop visits by high-level Syrian officials. This diplomatic isolation, on top of Syria’s painful entanglement in Lebanon, appears to have bothered Mr Assad. Some West European Governments believe they, not the Americans, deserve most credit for cutting the amount of Middle East-inspired terror in Europe. The pan-European co-ordina-tion of police and intelligence activities, through the Community’s secretive “Trevi” committee, showed a marked improvement in 1986. True, say the Americans, but would Europe’s policemen have done so well if the Libya bombing had not galvanised its politicians into action?

Mr Leo Tindemans, the Belgian Foreign Minister, seems to think it time to end Syria’s isolation. Others think it too soon to take the pressure off. >

Copyright.— The Economist.