TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/082691/0826002.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.2 KB | 118 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 29

Terrorism Changes Its Spots


As Middle Eastern governments edge away from the most radical
gangs, experts focus on homegrown violence

By BRUCE W. NELAN -- Reported by James O. Jackson/Bonn and Robert
Slater/Jerusalem


    The Shi`ite fundamentalists are down to a handful of
Western hostages, and hope is growing that there will soon be
none. Years have passed since innocent air travelers were
massacred in a departure lounge or held at gunpoint for days on
a baking tarmac. No truck bombs have created havoc for many
months. Is it safe to conclude that the tide has turned, that
terrorism is going out of style?

    Probably not, as long as there are people prepared to
pursue their grievances with violence. But the climate for
terrorism has certainly changed. Some of the most infamous
offenders -- the Palestinians and Arab radicals who perpetrated
shocking outrages from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s -- have
largely lost their governmental support. Iran, Syria, Libya and
Iraq are less willing -- or less able -- to provide them with
money, equipment and support for their operations. What has
become known as state-sponsored terrorism is, at least for now,
on the wane.

    "They haven't all stopped for the same reasons," says a
Western analyst based in the Middle East, "but there is a basket
of reasons that affects them all." Syria and Iran found
themselves on the same side as the U.S. in the gulf war, and
their need for foreign investment is a powerful incentive to
stop sponsoring violence.

    The Tehran government, which originally organized and
subsidized Lebanon's Hizballah, had already been leaning
westward, however grudgingly. President Hashemi Rafsanjani wants
increased trade, especially from Europe, to help rebuild an
economy destroyed by eight years of war with Iraq. By turning
away from radicals abroad, he can also undercut his extremist
domestic rival, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, Hizballah's godfather.

    Syria, facing the future without its own longtime sponsor,
the Soviet Union, also needs friends in the West and has signed
on to the U.S. plan for a regional peace conference. President
Hafez Assad has apparently decided to move to negotiations in
hopes of reclaiming the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. "He can
do that a lot more effectively through diplomacy than
terrorism," says a Western official.

    Allied bombs and the hostility of the Arab world have
knocked Iraq out of the game for the foreseeable future, though
Saddam Hussein's willingness to strike back if he can should not
be underestimated. Libya -- also chastened by U.S. bombs five
years ago -- is conducting what the U.S. State Department calls
a "charm offensive." Even so, President Muammar Gaddafi still
provides bases and support for Abu Nidal and other terrorists.

    The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union's preoccupation with its internal crisis helped deflate
some terrorist groups. Moscow directly or indirectly supported
many radical factions for years, says Hans Josef Horchem,
director of the Institute for Terrorism Research in Bonn, but
"now it is almost out of business and has little influence."

    Terror organizations with a Marxist-Leninist ideology are
also in trouble because their political dogma has been so
discredited that they are losing members and morale. The
Japanese Red Army, which launched a series of bloody attacks in
the 1970s, is down to 20 members. Germany's Red Army Faction is
a similar example, though its small remaining core group can
still inflict serious pain. R.A.F. assassins have killed two
leading German financiers since December 1989.

    In fact, terrorism of that type -- the work of nationalist
or anarchist groups inside one country -- is not declining as
significantly. Such bands, says Israel's leading terrorism
expert, Ariel Merari of Tel Aviv University, do not have the
means to gather intelligence, forge documents or handle complex
explosive devices. "They don't have the manpower to stage
attacks that cause a lot of international commotion," he says.
But they can and do wreak considerable damage.

    These domestic terrorists may be the wave of the future.
Officials in Europe, Asia and the U.S. believe local violence
is bound to increase. The Balkan states and Eastern Europe, with
their rising, angry nationalisms, will provide fertile ground.
Experts of the Counterterrorism Study Group in Washington say
that the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia has
mounted three terrorist attacks inside the U.S.S.R. since the
end of the gulf war. Others single out the murderous Sendero
Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru, which makes violence against
civilians a part of its guerrilla campaigns.

    Western Europe cannot afford to be euphoric either.
Besides the Red Army Faction, the Irish Republican Army is still
grimly at work. So is the Basque separatist E.T.A., busily
planting bombs as Spain prepares to welcome millions of visitors
to the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona and the World's
Fair in Seville. Even if state-sponsored terrorism fades, much
of the world is likely to be as perilous as ever.