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Syria SPONSORSHIP OF TERRORISM
In the mid-1980s, much media attention was paid to Syria's
alleged use of terrorism to achieve diplomatic, military, and
strategic objectives in the Middle East and elsewhere. Although
the exact Syrian role was murky, in the mid-1980s, Syria's
intelligence and security networks were strongly implicated in
the support of Middle Eastern and other international terrorist
groups in Western Europe. In fact, Syria was one of the countries
on the terrorism list issued by the United States government,
first compiled in 1979.
Within Syria's intelligence and security services,
sponsorship of terrorism reportedly was conducted by Air Force
Intelligence, of which Major General Muhammad al Khawli, an air
force officer, has served as chief since 1970. Khawli, an Alawi,
was considered Assad's most important adviser and his office was
adjacent to Assad's in the presidential palace in Damascus, where
he was presidential adviser on national security and head of
security. Since 1976 Khawli has been the architect of Syria's
policy in Lebanon. He also was credited with crushing the
uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hamah in 1982, and,
according to the London Times, under his command Air Force
Intelligence operatives had directed at least twenty-nine
terrorist operations as of late 1986. These intelligence
operatives reportedly worked in the offices of the Syrian Arab
Airline abroad and also as military attachés in Syrian embassies.
Thus, Syria had a formidable intelligence network with which to
direct and fund terrorist groups and provide them such assistance
as explosives and weapons, false passports and official Syrian
service passports, diplomatic pouches, safe houses, and
logistical support. Lieutenant Colonel Haitham Sayid, deputy
chief of Air Force Intelligence and its operations director, was
second in command to Khawli. In Lebanon, Khawli's power was
exercised by Brigadier General Ghazi Kanaan, head of Syria's
military intelligence in Lebanon.
Military Intelligence services (mukhabarat) were headed by
General Ali Duba, an Alawi, who was, in effect, the country's
chief of internal security. The mukhabarat was headquartered in
the Defense Ministry complex in the center of Damascus and
reputedly exercised immense authority because it operated from
within the military establishment. Reportedly, Military
Intelligence services handled radical Palestinian terrorist
groups, such as Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine--General Command. General Khawli and Lieutenant
Colonel Sayid were allegedly also the "paymasters" of the Abu
Nidal terrorist organization, also called the Fatah--
Revolutionary Council. According to the United States Department
of State, Syria provided the Abu Nidal organization with
logistical support and permission to operate facilities in
Damascus (the Syrian government asserts the facilities were
limited to cultural and political affairs). It is also claimed
that the Syrian government helped the Abu Nidal organization
maintain training camps in Lebanon's Biqa Valley, an area
controlled by Syrian armed forces, and supplied travel documents
permitting Abu Nidal operatives to transit freely through
Damascus when departing on missions.
Western government and intelligence sources admit that they
cannot pinpoint Assad's complicity in planning terrorist
operations but consider it unlikely that he was not informed in
advance of major terrorist acts. If these reports are true, it
was equally unlikely that Major General Khawli would act without
clearing a potentially risky operation with Assad.
Various news organizations have claimed that, as part of its
overall support network, in the 1980s Syria provided training
camps for Middle Eastern and international terrorists. There were
reportedly five training bases near Damascus and some twenty
other training facilities elsewhere, including the Syriancontrolled Biqa Valley in eastern Lebanon. In late 1986 U.S.
News & World Report stated that since October 1983, when
Israel withdrew from Beirut, large numbers of international
terrorists known to Western intelligence sources have turned up
in Damascus. These include members of radical Palestinian and
Lebanese terrorist groups, which depended on Syria for refuge,
logistical, and financial support, as well as other freelance
terrorists. Other sources report that a number of West European
terrorists, including members of the Red Army Faction (also known
as Baader Meinhof), and the Action Directe, as well as the
Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), the
Japanese Red Army, the Kurdish Labor Party, the Pakistani Az
Zulfikar, the Tamil United Liberation Front of Sri Lanka, the
Moro National Liberation Front for the Philippines, the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Oman, the Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Somalia, and the Eritrean Liberation Front, have
also received training in Syrian camps or in Syrian-controlled
areas in Lebanon. Furthermore, the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary
Faction (LARF) was based in the Lebanese village of Qubayat,
within the area of Syrian control. Syria also permitted Iran to
operate training camps in eastern Lebanon for the Shia Hizballah
(the Party of God) organization.
Syria's goal was to employ as surrogates terrorists whose
operations left few traces to Syria. In June 1986 the
Washington Post reported that Middle East analysts had
noted three distinct types of relationships between Syria's
intelligence and security services and terrorist groups. In the
first type of relationship, however, there was direct Syrian
involvement, because Syrian intelligence created new radical
Palestinian factions, such as As Saiqa, which were, in effect,
integrated components of the Syrian armed forces and hence direct
Syrian agents. The radical Palestinian Abu Musa group, which was
almost totally dependent on Syria, was another example of such a
relationship. In the other two types of relationships, Syria used
terrorists as surrogates to avoid direct blame. In the second
relationship, Syria collaborated with and provided logistical and
other support to terrorist groups that maintained independent
organizational identities, but were directed by Syrian
intelligence, which formulated general guidelines as to targets.
Reportedly, Abu Nidal's Fatah--Revolutionary Council and the
Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction (LARF) were examples of such
collaboration. The third relationship involved selection of
freelance or "sleeper" terrorists, mainly Palestinians and
Jordanians, to carry out a specific operation. The convicted
Lebanese assassin of Bashir Jumayyil and Nizar Hindawi and his
half-brother Ahmad Hasi, convicted in 1986 of trying to blow up
an Israeli commercial airliner in London and of bombing the
German-Arab Friendship Society office in West Berlin,
respectively, were listed as examples of this type of
relationship.
The firmest proof of Syrian sponsorship of terrorism occurred
at the trials of Nizar Hindawi in Britain and his half-brother,
Ahmad Hasi, in West Berlin. Evidence introduced in Britain, and
other information not made public, linked Hindawi with the Syrian
intelligence services. Because of the evidence, the British
government severed diplomatic relations with Syria. Hasi's case
implicated Haitham Sayid, deputy chief of Syrian Air Force
Intelligence, for whom an international arrest warrant was issued
by West Berlin authorities. After Hasi's conviction, the West
German government downgraded its relations with Syria.
A series of terrorist explosions in Paris in September 1986
were linked to a Marxist Maronite terrorist group, the Lebanese
Armed Revolutionary Faction (LARF). LARF was implicated in the
assassination of a number of American, West European, and Israeli
diplomats in Europe, and its operations were reputedly known to
Syrian intelligence. In a magazine interview in September 1986,
Pierre Marion, former director of the French General Directorate
of External Security, charged that in the early 1980s Syrian
intelligence agents had helped terrorist groups to operate in
France, as part of a Syrian effort to punish France for its
involvement in Lebanon.
Although Syrian links to terrorists in Western Europe are
relatively recent, observers believe that Assad has long used
terrorism to further Syrian policy objectives in the Middle East.
Over the years, Jordanian officials have accused Syria of
assassinating Jordanian diplomats. PLO leaders have accused Syria
of the assassination of Arafat's chief of staff and close aide,
Saad Sayil (known as Abu Walid), killed near a Syrian checkpoint
in the Biqa Valley in eastern Lebanon in 1982. According to the
report by the United States Department of State on "Patterns of
Global Terrorism: 1983," several attacks by members of the Abu
Nidal organization reflected Syrian opposition toward the proArafat Fatah faction of the PLO. In 1983 these attacks included
the assassination at the International Conference of Socialists
in Portugal of PLO observer Issam Sartawi, who had advocated
dialogue with Israel. The same report also charged Syria with
encouraging the radical Shia Lebanese group, Islamic Jihad, to
carry out the 1983 suicide bombing attacks against the United
States Embassy in Beirut and the headquarters of the United
States and French contingents of the Multinational Force (MNF) in
Beirut, which resulted in 557 casualties.
Data as of April 1987
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