State Department Charges That at Least Four Countries Have Aided Abetted Terrorism in Recent Years N

The State Department, in a major development in the U.S. campaign against international terrorism, has declared publicly that “at least” four countries– Libya, Iraq, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and Somalia–have “aided or abetted terrorists and terrorism” in recent years.

The disclosure came in an exchange of correspondence by Sen. Jacob K. Javits (R.NY) with the State Department that he made available today. He said “The State Department’s agreement to present its information in unclassified form is an important development in that it clearly identifies those governments that have helped to allow terrorism to exist. “It is now up to the civilized nations of the world to determine what they believe to be appropriate action in response to the activities of these governments who have sided with terrorists,” Javits said.

The State Department, however, indicated that a concentrated attack to wipe out terrorism is not visible although it is urging “unilaterally” that other governments adopt international security standards outlined in Chicago by the Convention on International Civil Aviation. Meanwhile, the Department said, Americans are searching “for new ways and means to increase international support for enforcement.

“Although there has been a number of terrorist attacks and bombings at major airports in the past few years and despite U.S. support for implementation of security standards, the prospects of success for a multilateral enforcement agreement are not considered good, “the Department said. It did not give the reasons.

Javit’s correspondent was with Ambassador Douglas Heck, the State Department’s Coordinator for Combating Terrorism, and Douglas J. Bennet Jr. Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations. Hearings on terrorism will be held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the second half of June, Javits, a committee member, said.

EXPECTS REPRISALS FOR ENTEBBE RESCUE

Heck, who has recently been designated Ambassador to Nepal, said in an interview two months ago that retaliation by terrorists for the Israeli Entebbe raid last July is expected and that he feared that it is “overdue.”

He said “We assume they will try for revenge and I expected it before now.” He did not identify “they” but it was understood to mean Arab terrorists. In the interview, Heck said a reason for the absence of retaliation so far may have been the civil war in Lebanon and the U.S. policy of no concessions.

Heck’s statement aroused anger in some quarters as an irresponsible prediction but PLO chief Yasir Arafat said in a Kuwait newspaper interview last month that terrorism will continue and pledged “a resurgence of suicide strikes against the Zionist foe.”

Bennet, in an April 27 letter to Javits, said “There is, unfortunately, every indication that international terrorism is on the increase and we will have to prepare ourselves to deal with further attacks on American citizens and installations abroad including those of American companies.”

REPORTS ON THE COUNTRIES INVOLVED

In individual reports to Javits on the four countries named as harboring terrorists, the State Department noted that “although the Libyan government claims that it is opposed to terrorists, it has qualified this by saying that ‘freedom fighters’ are not ‘terrorists’ and have the right to carry on their struggle ‘by whatever means’ they deem necessary.”

The State Department listed eight specific instances since 1972 of Libya having “given refuge to international terrorists involved in a long history of terrorist acts” which included the perpetrators of the September, 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, the attacks on Lufthansa, Japanese, TWA, EI AI and BOAC planes, the commandeering of a train in Czechoslovakia bound for Austria, and kidnappers of certain OPEC oil ministers.

The report said the Libyan government has “actively assisted a number of terrorist groups and individuals” who have been “primarily members of the several ‘rejectionist’ factions of the Palestinian movement who have broken away from more moderate Palestinian leaders on the issue of the legitimacy of politically motivated violence as a means of carrying on the struggle against Israel.”

The Department said that the “government of Iraq is a major supporter of rejectionist Palestinian elements” and “lends political and moral support to all rejectionist groups. To what degree Baghdad provides financial, military, logistical or training support is unclear, but it appears that a substantial degree of some such support goes to one renegade Fatah group and the Wadi Haddad wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), both of which carry out international terrorist activities.”

The Department observed that there is some, public evidence that Yemen has “on occasion allowed its territory to be used as a sanctuary for terrorists” but that “in recent months there has been some tentative movement towards improvement of relations between the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and certain of its moderate Arab neighbors which have consistently repudiated international terrorism.”