Syrian support for international terrorism: 1983-86

US Department of State Bulletin, Feb, 1987

Support for Non-Palestinian Terrorists

In addition to the radical Palestiniangroups, a variety of other terrorists have facilities and received terrorist training in Syria or Syrian-controlled areas of Lebanon: the Japanese Red Army, the Kurdish Labor Party, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), and the Pakistani al Zulfikar. In addition, the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction (LARF) is based in the Lebanese village of Qubayyat, within the area of Syrian control in Lebanon.

To these groups must be added theindividual international terrorists who frequent Damascus. Bruno Breguet, an associate of Carlos, the international terrorist, was arrested in Paris in February 1982 for transporting arms and explosives. Later released, he was recently sighted on a flight to Damascus, met on arrival by Syrian authorities, and escorted through the airport without having to pass through the normal controls. Evidence exists that Frederic Oriach, a militant member of the French Action Directe, spent July and August 1986 in Damascus pursuing ideological and military studies.

Casualties and Control

Attacks by Syrian-supported groupssince 1983 have killed or wounded nearly 500 people.

Syrian-supported groups haveattacked U.S. facilities in the Middle East over 10 times since 1983. In Jordan in 1985, for example, the Syrian-sponsored Jordanian People's Revolutionary Party attempted two anti-U.S. attacks. Bombs were found at the home of an employee of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) and at the American Center for Oriental Studies. These operations, as well as others aimed against Jordanian targets, have halted since the Syrian-Jordanian rapprochement late in 1985--underscoring Syria's ability, if it wishes, to control its surrogates' activities and to severely curb the capability of those to whom it provided safe haven and support.

This has been acknowledged by a topSyrian official who tried to dismiss, in a Washington Post press interview in September 1986, evidence that Abu Nidal's group was involved in terrorist attacks. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Charaa said in discussing the actions of the Abu Nidal group: "Whoever knows my government must realize that such attacks could not be carried out without its awareness.'

CHRONOLOGY

1986

November 26: West Berlin. A courtconvicted two Arabs for the March 29 bombing of the German-Arab Friendship Union which injured 11 persons. In a sworn statement, one of the defendants, Ahmad Hasi, said he picked up the bomb at the Syrian Embassy in East Berlin from a Syrian Air Force intelligence officer. Hasi is a brother of Nizar Hindawi, who was convicted in a British court for the attempted bombing of an El Al airliner.

November 6: Turkey. Turkish prosecutorsissues an indictment accusing six Palestinians working for the Abu Nidal organization of killing a Jordanian diplomat in July 1985. An arrest warrant also was issued for the Syrian Embassy Second Secretary, Mohammed Darwichi, who was one of the original defendants and left Turkey. The indictment also linked members of the group with four other actions: the September 6, 1986, attack on an Istanbul synagogue which killed 22 persons; an attempt to place a bomb on an Alitalia flight in 1983; the attempted car bombing of a U.S. officers' club in Izmir in 1983; and the killing of a Palestinian student in Ankara in 1982.