Threat Assessment: States Help Terrorists Seek WMD

By Greg Seigle

Global Security Newswire

Now that senior U.S. officials have publicly fingered six countries for aggressively pursuing biological weapons (see GSN, Nov. 20), Bush administration officials recently said it is no coincidence that the accused also top the U.S. State Department’s list of nations that harbor terrorists.

Regimes in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria and Sudan are not only pursuing deadly chemical and biological weapons, they are simultaneously backing terrorist groups with track records of committing vicious mass-casualty attacks among innocent civilians, according to U.S. officials and documents.

“These are state sponsors of terrorism and they are also pursuing, or may already possess, chemical and biological weapons,” said Sean McCormack, spokesman for the National Security Council. “We’ll do everything we can to prevent terrorist groups from acquiring or developing chemical or biological weapons.”

Although McCormack and others in the Bush administration have stopped short of connecting terrorist groups to the chemical and biological weapons programs of the six countries, national security analysts said the process began last week in Geneva when Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton delivered an unusually blunt speech during a conference on the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention that accused the six nations of seeking to acquire biological arsenals.

“The states who are fully engaged in weapons of mass destruction are the same countries that, almost without exception, are facilitating, harboring and supporting terrorists,” Jack Spencer, a defense analyst with the Heritage Foundation, said Tuesday. “That’s an important link to make.”

“There is the possibility that those states have transferred, may have transferred or will transfer [chemical or biological] technologies to terrorist groups or other second-hand outfits who act on their behalf,” added Cheryl Loeb, a research associate with the Monterey Institute for International Studies.

While a vocal minority of U.S. analysts believe that rulers in Baghdad, Tehran, Pyongyang or elsewhere would be foolish to help terrorists launch large-scale strikes against the United States—after all, each regime seeks to survive, not to be hunted like Osama bin Laden and former Taliban rulers in Afghanistan—most agree it is plausible that these nations or wayward elements within them may share their lethal arsenals with terrorist groups that offer large sums of cash, including desperate remnants of al-Qaeda.

“The possibility is very real and very frightening that some of these countries may provide global terrorist groups chemical or biological weapons—or at least the know-how,” said Dan Gore, a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute. “That allows these guys to leap-frog the [acquisition and development] process.”

While the administration officials appear to be taking a cautious, deliberate approach to the war on terrorism by accusing suspects one at a time, they are preparing to tackle aggressively a variety of terrorist groups capable of launching chemical or biological attacks in the United States or elsewhere, analysts said. In order to dismantle these terrorist networks, analysts added, the United States would likely be forced to confront the nations that host them.

Highlighting Iraq and Libya

“There is no question [Iraq] sponsors terrorism,” said Charles Duelfer, who from 1993 until last year was a top leader of the U.N. special commissions that probed Iraq for evidence of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

“There is no doubt that they are pursuing weapons of mass destruction,” Duelfer continued. “Are you then going to trust [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein, with his track record, and believe that he wouldn’t share his weapons of mass destruction with terrorists who would use them? Weapons that, quite conceivably, could never be traced back to Baghdad?”

Some analysts, however, believe that Iraq and other enemies of Washington are more interested in their own long-term survival than in helping terrorists lash out at U.S. interests.

“They’re dangerous but they’re not stupid,” said Harlan Ullman, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who teaches at the National Defense University.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the CSIS Global Organized Crime Project, said a high-level CIA official recently told him that Iraq has been supplying useful information on al-Qaeda since the attacks in New York City and Washington.

“Of course there is a link” between major terrorist groups and various countries, said de Borchgrave, a 55-year veteran journalist who has interviewed both Saddam Hussein and Libyan President Muammar Qadhafi a few times each. But the states and terrorist groups simply swap favors by exchanging information and safe houses, not by working in concert together, he added.

The Bush administration would be naive if it thinks it could “kill two birds with one stone” by attacking countries that harbor terrorists under the guise that the host countries could supply the terrorists weapons of mass destruction, he said.

De Borchgrave, however, conceded that there is a history of states hiring terrorists to carry out attacks on their enemies—in many cases the target being the United States—a tactic that dates back to the early stages of the Cold War. Often those who carry out the attacks do not have direct contact with those who ordered them, he noted.

For example, he said, the attack on Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988, was in retaliation for the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes earlier that year. The Pentagon said the shooting of the Airbus 300 was accidental and paid reparations to the families of the deceased.

According to de Borchgrave, who obtained his information from Qadhafi during a 1995 interview in Tripoli, the Iranians hired Syrian intelligence agents who in turn subcontracted the Libyans to blow up a plane full of Americans. The Libyans suspected the Iranians were behind the contract but never asked many questions, he said.

“You use second or third parties precisely to offer some insulation,” explained Gore, a former Pentagon adviser. “For Iraq [such] terrorist missions are no different than the United States flying a B-2 [bomber] raid from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.”

Besides using chemical or biological weapons hand-delivered by hired hit men, countries such as North Korea, Iraq, Iran and others do not have the resources or many other means of carrying out attacks against the United States, said Spencer, the Heritage Foundation analyst.

“They don’t have the aircraft carriers [or] the air forces to lash out at the United States, so they turn to terrorists to strike,” Spencer said. “It could [occur] today, a week, a month, a year.”

“If a state chooses to use terrorists to strike at the United States, those terrorists will certainly have access to all the capabilities that the states possess,” Spencer continued. “That includes chemical and biological weapons, possibly even nukes.”

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Threat Assessment:  Al-Qaeda is But One Target

By Greg Seigle

Global Security Newswire

Although the White House has openly declared al-Qaeda public enemy No. 1, U.S. intelligence agencies are quietly investigating dozens of other terrorist groups that could be just as deadly, officials recently told GSN.

The CIA, the Pentagon and other intelligence and investigative organizations have been tight-lipped about which terrorist groups may be targeted, but officials quietly acknowledged they are looking into dozens of groups capable of conducting mass-casualty attacks.

“Sometimes we work with friendly foreign governments to target groups of mutual interest,” a CIA official said today. “We look to disrupt their activities any way we can.”

In addition to Islamic groups, U.S. officials are scrutinizing terrorist outfits based in Cuba, Colombia and other typically Christian nations, the official said. Groups in the Philippines are also under scrutiny, the official added.

Now that members of the al-Qaeda network appear to be on the lam, U.S. analysts have speculated that the Bush administration may next go after a non-Islamic terrorist group in an effort to demonstrate that the war on terrorism is not a crusade against Islam. However, because extremist Islamic groups have often issued threats against the United States—and such groups have a track record of actually attacking U.S. interests—probes of these groups remain a top priority, officials said.

In an updated report released Oct. 5, the U.S. State Department listed 28 foreign terrorist groups considered to be the biggest threats. More than half are Islamic groups. The others range from the Japanese Red Army to Peru’s Shining Path.

U.S. officials have declined to specify which groups are undergoing the most intense investigations, but terrorism experts say three groups with links to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network top the list of priorities. These groups include the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Gama’at al-Islamiyya and the Harakat ul-Mujahidin.

*         The Egyptian Islamic Jihad has threatened to retaliate against the United States for jailing its blind spiritual leader, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Abdel-Rahman was convicted in 1995 of plotting attacks across the United States that never materialized and is serving a life sentence.

*         Gama’at al-Islamiyya has launched vicious attacks against western tourists in Egypt since 1992, most notably the 1997 assault at Luxor that killed 58 foreigners. The group signed bin Laden’s 1998 proclamation to kill Americans and attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995.

*         Harakat ul-Mujahidin operated terrorist training bases in eastern Afghanistan and suffered casualties in 1998 when the U.S. Navy fired 68 Tomahawk missiles at the camps in retaliation for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Its leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, has vowed revenge on U.S. targets.

Other radical Islamic terrorist groups that could attack U.S. interests include the following:

*         Hamas—A hardcore Gaza Strip-based organization that has initiated many assassinations of Israeli political and military leaders and conducted numerous large-scale suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Hamas is believed to receive support from Iran.

*         Hezbollah—An Iranian-backed militia from the Bakkar Valley of Lebanon that conducted the 1983 and 1984 suicide bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks and the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut. Hezbollah is believed to be backed by Syria.

*         Saudi Hizbollah—Composed mostly of Shi’ites and Saudis sympathetic to the Iranian revolution of Islam and believed to be responsible for the 1996 bombings at Khobar Towers, which killed 19 Americans and wounded 372. Its funding comes from wealthy Saudis sympathetic to its views.

*         Mujahedine Khalq Organization—An Iraqi-based, anti-Iranian army of several thousand soldiers that launched attacks in 1992 on Iranian embassies in 13 countries, exemplifying the group’s ability to mount large-scale assaults abroad.

*         Palestinian Islamic Jihad—Has threatened to retaliate against the United States and Israel, blaming the countries for the assassination of its leader, Fathi Shaqaqi, in Malta in October 1995. It is believed to receive backing from Iran.

*         Palestine Liberation Front—Lead by Abu Abbass, the Front has mostly attacked Israeli targets, although in 1985 one of its members executed Leon Klinghoffer, a passenger aboard the hijacked cruise ship Achille Lauro. The Front is believed to have been holed up in Iraq since 1998.

*         Abu Nidal Organization—Abu Nidal’s group of hardened terrorists spent much of the 1970s and 1980s hijacking planes and conducting other terrorist operations in the name of Palestine. Although the group has not attacked Western targets for over a decade, experts have said it remains lethal, training in Iraq.

Non-Islamic terrorist groups under close scrutiny are the following:

*         United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia—Created in 1997, the UAC is the most recent group to be added to the list by Secretary of State Colin Powell. With an army of 8,000 supported by drug trafficking, the group has been accused of 804 assassinations, 203 kidnappings and 75 massacres that killed 507 people—all within the first 10 months of 2000. While the paramilitaries have not taken action against U.S. interests, officials believe the chances are higher now that the United States is pumping more money into Colombia’s military.

*         National Liberation Army—This Colombia-based Marxist group was formed in 1965 by urban intellectuals inspired by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, and continues to receive substantial support from Cuba. After a series of kidnappings in 1999, each involving at least one American, ELN has begun dialogue with Bogota officials, although the two sides cannot agree on where to meet for peace talks. It is believed to have up to 6,000 combatants ready to strike U.S. or other targets.

*         Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—Established in 1964 as the military wing of the communist party, it has a long and bloody history of kidnappings, hijackings, murders and guerilla and conventional combat campaigns against the Colombian government. In 1999 the FARC executed three U.S. civilians.

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Food Safety:  United States Considers Restructuring Agencies

Federal officials are examining proposals to tighten security on the U.S. food supply, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Bush administration officials are considering consolidating federal food inspection responsibilities under one agency. The Times reported that about a dozen agencies currently inspect food, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture Department, the Customs Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“For security enhancement, we ought to at least take a look at whether or not we need to merge functions, merge agencies,” said Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.

Ridge’s comments echoed other signals of the administration’s growing interest in consolidation, the Times reported. U.S. President George W. Bush voiced support in his election campaign, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has repeatedly voiced concern about the food supply.

U.S. lawmakers also are considering proposals to enhance security for the nation’s food supply. Provisions in a new Senate bioterrorism bill would provide an additional $500 million for food safety, tighter requirements for food processors and greater authority for federal food regulators (Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 24).

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