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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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1990-09-17
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NATION, Page 26Bombs Across the Ocean?An explosion in San Diego suggests Iranian retaliation
How long is the reach of foreign terrorists? For years the FBI
as well as private U.S. experts has offered a soothing answer:
while Americans abroad are vulnerable, there is little danger at
home. But last week Oliver Revell, the FBI's second ranking
official, told a congressional subcommittee that a "hard core" of
300 among the more than 10,000 Iranians who have come to the U.S.
as students bear careful watching. Some, he said, are members of
Iran's Revolutionary Guard whose real interests are far from
academic.
Two days after Revell's warning in Washington, Sharon Rogers,
wife of U.S. Navy Captain Will Rogers III, was driving alone
through San Diego on her way to her job as a schoolteacher. As her
white Toyota van was stopped for a red light, a bomb exploded from
underneath. Just before the vehicle burst into flames, Mrs. Rogers
jumped out, shaken but unharmed. The van was gutted by the blast.
Shards of metal had pierced its roof, barely missing her head. The
significance of the bomb, which may have been triggered by remote
control, almost certainly lay with Captain Rogers. He is commander
of the U.S.S. Vincennes, the guided-missile cruiser that shot down
an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf last July 3, killing all
290 people aboard. Rogers gave the order to fire missiles at the
plane in the mistaken belief that it was an Iranian jet fighter
attacking his ship.
The FBI and naval investigators rushed to the Rogers' home in
San Diego to check for other explosives. Guards were assigned to
Captain and Mrs. Rogers, who went into hiding. They had received
anonymous death threats shortly after the airliner tragedy. In
July, Mrs. Rogers got a threatening call from someone she thought
sounded Middle Eastern. "Are you the wife of the murderer?" the
caller asked. When the Vincennes returned to its San Diego port in
October, the ship's crew was ordered to be on alert for possible
attacks when off the ship.
If the bomb was intended as retribution for the Iran Airbus
tragedy, it was probably not the first such act of revenge. Various
Iranian groups claimed, and investigators now widely assume, that
the explosive device that blew up Pan Am's Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland, in December was also a retaliatory strike.
That resulted in the death of 270 people, mostly Americans. The
prevailing theory among investigators is that the plan to destroy
Flight 103 originated among Iranian Revolutionary Guards and was
carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine-General Command.
Other evidence that interlocked terrorist groups are growing
bold enough to strike in the U.S. came last April. Yu Kikumura,
identified by federal prosecutors as a member of the Japanese Red
Army, was arrested on the New Jersey Turnpike with pipe bombs
designed to injure humans rather than damage buildings. He carried
maps pinpointing targets in New York City. Prosecutors claimed his
intended attack would have occurred on the second anniversary of
the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya. For unsuspecting Americans, the
battle against international terrorism may be coming close to home.