Bombings Underscore World’s Vulnerability : Mideast: More deadly attacks against Jews are feared. Israel says peace plans must not succumb to terrorism.

JERUSALEM —  A white delivery van parks on a Monday morning in front of a building in downtown Buenos Aires that houses many of Argentina’s Jewish organizations. A few minutes later, a quarter-ton of explosives in the van are detonated, demolishing the building. Ninety-six people are killed, 230 are wounded.

A day later, a man believed to be Lebanese and using a crudely forged U.S. passport boards a small commuter plane in Panama--and shortly after takeoff blows it up with a bomb he is carrying. Twenty other people die with him--12 of them Jewish businessmen.

In London a week later, a well-dressed, middle-aged woman described as “Middle Eastern” or “Mediterranean” parks her car next to the Israeli Embassy, tells a police officer she is visiting friends next door and walks off, a department store shopping bag in hand. Minutes later, the car explodes, heavily damaging the embassy and wounding 14 people.

At 12:45 the next morning, another car bomb goes off outside a north London building housing Jewish community organizations. Five people are wounded.

From four terrorist strikes in nine days, profoundly troubling questions arise:

Are Jews around the world--not only Israelis but all Jews--now targets in a new surge of Middle East terrorism, a campaign able to strike globally with deadly suddenness? Can the Middle East peace process, still fragile despite the breakthroughs of the past year, survive such murderous attacks? Or will terrorism push the region toward war once again?

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, speaking to his colleagues at a special Cabinet meeting last week, responded to those questions with characteristic bluntness:

“Jews once again are being killed precisely because they are Jews. The motive this time is to halt the search for peace. We know where the trail leads. Israel will do all within its power to find and punish those responsible for these bombings. Peace must not succumb to terror.”

Yet the bombings showed how vulnerable the Jewish communities of the Diaspora are, whether in security-conscious Britain or remote Panama.

In the sober judgment of Israeli and Western intelligence analysts and counterterrorism specialists, any Jewish group virtually anywhere in the world is now a potential target, with Israeli and high-profile Jewish institutions at a significantly higher risk.

“Perhaps the most dangerous time is still ahead as the peace process is actually implemented and as barriers between Mideast states come down,” commented Bruce Hoffman, co-director of the Center for Terrorism and Conflict Studies at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland. “As peace takes hold, terrorists will have even more to lose and more motivation to demonstrate their capacity as spoilers.”

The driver of the Renault van in Buenos Aires had carefully positioned it just outside the front doors of the building housing the social service organizations of Argentina’s Jewish community of 250,000. It was a few minutes before 10 a.m. on July 18, a time when the building would be filling with more than 100 employees and clients.

Inside, the brothers Schalit had arrived to arrange their father’s funeral with the Argentine-Jewish Mutual Assn., which operates four Jewish cemeteries. Veronica Goldenberg, a receptionist for the Delegation of Argentine-Jewish Assns., had taken her position working the phone banks. Her colleague, Lucia Osiboff, had overslept and was on her way to work, late.

At 9:53, the car bomb was detonated, and the seven-story community center collapsed in a deafening explosion.

The Schalit brothers were killed, probably instantly. Goldenberg, 20, was crushed to death. Osiboff’s sleepiness had spared her life. The driver of the Renault was blown into many pieces, and what was left of his body was found a full eight days later behind the van’s charred steering wheel.

“I never saw so much helplessness,” said Nestor Pelliciaro, 35, a shopkeeper on the same block. Norberto Libster, a Hebrew teacher who lived across the street, recalled: “Everything was going in slow motion. It looked like a movie, like Lebanon, Bosnia, Sarajevo, anything but the window of my apartment.”

Some people were rescued, but by the time specialists arrived from Israel with dogs trained to search through bomb rubble, the recoveries were only of the dead.

“This will last forever as a tragic date, as the mutilation of the body and bosom of the Jewish community,” said Ruben Beraja, a banker and the president of the Delegation of Argentine-Jewish Assns. He was having coffee at a cafe three blocks away from the explosion.

“Nearly 100 families have buried their loved ones as though a lightning bolt of death struck,” he said. “ . . . This will not be forgotten.”

The Argentine investigation has focused on the radical Islamic group Hezbollah (Party of God) in Lebanon, on an offshoot called Ansarallah, which claimed responsibility for the bombing, and on Iran as their patron. Authorities are trying to determine if Iranian diplomats provided support for their activities. Sheik Sobhi Tufeili, Hezbollah’s former secretary general and now a leader of its most militant wing, is regarded by investigators and counterterrorism specialists as the likely planner of the attack.

A break in the case came when Argentine Judge Juan Jose Galeano traveled secretly to Caracas last weekend to interview Monoucher Motamer, a former Iranian diplomat and now political refugee in Venezuela. Motamer implicated at least two and as many as five people working at the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires, according to sources familiar with the investigation. “The information he gave me is of extreme importance,” Galeano said.

The Iranian ambassador, Hadi Soleimanpour, was interrogated twice last week at the Argentine Foreign Ministry amid suspicions that he and his embassy’s cultural attache were involved in the bombing. Five people have reportedly been detained for questioning in Buenos Aires.

Iran, for its part, rejected accusations of involvement, calling them part of “an American-Zionist conspiracy to justify further aggression” in the Middle East.

But Ansarallah, or the Partisans of God, which Western analysts believe Tufeili heads, said in a statement from Lebanon that it committed the Argentine and Panamanian bombings and planned more.

“Suicide squads (have been formed) to confront the Zionist enemy everywhere,” the statement said. “The Argentina and Panama operations are but a proof of our struggle against Zionism.”

Lebanese political analysts, however, saw Iranian hands in the bombings. Iran, which last week again voiced its opposition to the Arabs’ expanding peace process with Israel, provides expertise and financing for many militant groups throughout the Middle East. It created Hezbollah in 1982, it maintains the anti-Iraq Islamic Alliance in Tehran, it aids the fundamentalist regime in Sudan, and it has links to a variety of militant Islamic groups in the Horn of Africa.

Iran also reportedly lost 20 of its Revolutionary Guards in an Israeli attack June 2 on a Hezbollah camp in the Bekaa Valley.

Thus, according to this Lebanese analysis, Iran would have had the motive and capability to finance an operation like the Buenos Aires attack, providing logistic assistance such as false passports and calling in expertise from various countries, including Lebanon.

“Because this was so well organized, it can’t be viewed as a flash in the pan,” a senior U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington said of the attacks. “Striking in the heart of big capitals as well as in the countryside of Panama sends a strong message.”

The attacks set off alarms because of their boldness and changes in tactics. In the past, neither Hezbollah nor Ansarallah has been involved in a systematic series of bombings; their attacks have generally been tit-for-tat reprisals. And, although Lebanon’s Shiite extremists have hijacked airliners, they have never carried out a midair suicide bombing.

The four attacks also demonstrated deadly expertise. Advance intelligence in Panama, where the flight patterns of Jewish businessmen were noted, and in one of the most protected sections of London deeply concerns counterterrorism officials. The Panama incident surprised experts--as a site, for the evident knowledge about the target, and for originality. In London, the bomber coolly talked her way past a roadblock and a police officer; her shopping bag from Harrods department store showed attention to detail.

Counterterrorism specialists also believe that those who carried out the attacks had deep roots in the places where they were operating; they noted the local support networks, extensive reconnaissance and preparation. Trained terrorists probably traveled to each place to carry out the final planning and oversee the attack, but most work was done by local supporters.

“This appears to have been planned for a long time,” said Frank Brenchley, chairman of London’s Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism. “It’s part of a widely spaced campaign that includes Buenos Aires, Panama and the attempt to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, in March. That kind of planning must be done months ahead. . . . I think this is not the end of the process. They may hit targets in other high-profile capitals like Paris and Rome.”

Intelligence analysts and counterterrorism officials are increasingly convinced that the major factor in the attacks was the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging blows for more than a decade, mostly in southern Lebanon but sometimes outside the Mideast.

Opposition to the peace process, the experts say, was an important but secondary element.

“Terrorism is never a direct line,” Hoffman, of the St. Andrew’s center, said. “It is wheels within wheels, shadows overshadowing other shadows. The big picture is the act in which it occurs: the Mideast peace process. But often there is a little picture that is far more important, like Israel’s raids on Lebanon. . . .

“Hezbollah has to demonstrate to a certain extent that it will not remain idle and that it will defend its followers. The domestic element is the small driving force. The bigger picture is the unfolding peace process.”

Michael Kramer, deputy director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, said the success of Israel’s recent attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon probably led the group to seek softer targets elsewhere for its reprisals.

“For a long time, Hezbollah had ample targets in south Lebanon for launching tit-for-tat attacks against Israel,” Kramer said. “Only when they were overwhelmed by some Israeli strike that they couldn’t respond to locally have their eyes turned abroad.”

Hezbollah’s first foreign targets were French and not Jewish, he noted, recalling a series of devastating bomb attacks in Paris in 1985 and 1986 intended to discourage France from supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War.

Hezbollah’s black flag with its insignia of a raised rifle flies across Beirut’s fetid southern suburbs and other impoverished neighborhoods where Shiite Muslims, displaced by the fighting in southern Lebanon, have taken refuge.

With further strongholds in southern Lebanon, in Baalbek and parts of the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah would appear to have lost little of its radicalism of the 1980s, when its bombings of American targets and kidnaping of foreign hostages made it one of the most feared names in the Middle East.

Hezbollah’s leaders today, however, stress its role not as a militia but as a political party with deputies in the Lebanese Parliament. It runs more charitable and service organizations, including hospitals, pharmacies and schools, than the government. It should be seen as a member of the broad Islamic coalition against the negotiations with Israel.

Hezbollah had no connection with the bombings, asserted Hussein Khalil, chief of Hezbollah’s political department, in an interview. He dismissed the Israeli allegations as an attempt to justify further attacks on Lebanon and to “tarnish the image of the resistance.”

Khalil, in tailored black pants and a pullover, greets visitors in an elegantly appointed reception room, full of plush sofas and beautifully inscribed quotations from the Koran. It seems an island of cultivated civility in one of the foulest quarters of Beirut’s sweltering, overcrowded southern suburbs. Yet the talk there is tough and uncompromising.

Recent Israeli strikes in Lebanon were an attempt to destabilize the country, Khalil said, charging that “Israel is interested in creating divisions in Lebanon and re-creating the state of civil war . . . .

“We usually fight the Israelis on our own soil, but when Israel wants to expand its aggression against Lebanon, sometimes we are forced to expand our range of reprisal, even if it takes in the whole land of northern Palestine. Whenever aggression expands, reprisals must expand.”

Still tougher talk comes from Tufeili, the Hezbollah leader suspected in the Buenos Aires bombing. “Even if the whole world signs peace with the Jews, we will continue to fight them,” he told the Beirut newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour. He denied any role in the attack.

Israel has encouraged speculation that, just as it did after 11 of its athletes were killed at the 1972 Munich Olympics, its intelligence agents would methodically hunt down and kill those responsible for the Buenos Aires bombing.

“Just as we found solutions to terror in the past . . . so too a solution will be found to Iranian terror,” a senior general told Israeli military correspondents last week.

But Rabin is under considerable pressure from the Clinton Administration not to retaliate directly or immediately, according to officials here and in Washington, for fear this would widen the circle of reprisals, escalating attacks by Shiite extremists and bringing them to the United States.

There were real fears, based on what FBI officials described as firm intelligence, that Hezbollah or another Iranian-backed group was ready to mount a terrorist campaign against Israeli and Jewish institutions in New York and other American cities.

There was also concern among some diplomats that the peace process--Israel’s new relationship with Jordan, the development of the self-governing Palestinian Authority, the just-starting-to-move talks with Syria--could be enveloped by a wave of terror.

But U.S. officials claimed they are confident that current Israeli-Arab peace efforts would not be halted by either an upsurge in terrorism or a cycle of violence in which Israel retaliates for each attack and, in turn, provokes more suicide bombings.

“We will, I am convinced, ultimately see a lasting and comprehensive peace for the Arabs and Jews,” Secretary of State Warren Christopher told the House Foreign Affairs Committee Thursday. “Those results, of course, will be the best answer for terrorists.”

Acknowledging that “the terrorist bombings in Latin America and London serve as a tragic reminder that the enemies of peace remain formidable,” Christopher added, “We must take new and strong action to deal with this wave of terrorism.”

In the worst-case scenario, combatting Middle East terrorism worldwide could be even more demanding than making peace after nearly half a century of war in the region. Counterterrorism officials contend that it will take unprecedented international cooperation on a scale witnessed only once--during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991.

That lasted only eight months, they point out, and this effort will require years of coordination, intelligence-sharing and multinational security arrangements.

And while Hezbollah is likely to remain the most feared opponent, other radical groups also pose serious threats.

Israeli and Western intelligence and counterterrorism experts believe strongly that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, led by Ahmed Jibril, and another radical Palestinian group known by the name of its leader, Abu Nidal, will also mount attacks--and that one or the other may have carried out the London bombings.

An Abu Nidal member is the prime suspect in the assassination of a Jordanian diplomat last spring in Lebanon, and others launched attacks there last year on Fatah, the principal group within the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The Abu Nidal group, which has backing from Libya, retains an infrastructure in Europe and through much of the Middle East, according to intelligence analysts. As the peace negotiations proceed, it is likely to attempt disruptive attacks since it will have no political role in the future Mideast and thus has nothing to lose. Its targets, according to counterterrorism officials, will probably be Jordanians, Palestinians and finally Israelis.

Jibril has been comparatively quiet over the past year, but as Syria enters serious negotiations with Israel his organization stands to lose its base and financial supporter in Damascus. Any Syrian deal with Israel would certainly include an end to backing and refuge for militant groups.

Counterterrorism efforts are easy to mobilize when there is a specific threat and an end within sight, experts noted. The current challenge will be an indefinite struggle requiring a focus and a long-term commitment that the international community has never been able to sustain.

“It’s an illusion to think we can ever stop terrorism completely,” Hoffman said, “but we can certainly make it more difficult to carry out.”

But Western resolve to combat terrorism seemed, even to cynical Israelis, renewed and stronger than before.

“Imagine car bombs like that in Buenos Aires in the heart of Manhattan,” a senior Israeli official commented. “Imagine the London bombs going off on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles and then, 13 hours later, in Pasadena. . . .

“After the World Trade Center bombing in New York, we are finally getting U.S. officials to take terrorism seriously. And this is serious: You could have synagogues and Jewish day schools and community centers being bombed across America. That is the meaning of Buenos Aires, Panama and London.”

Outbreak of Terror

A rash of attacks on Jewish targets in Latin America and Britain showed how vulnerable the Jewish communities of the Diaspora are. Israeli and Western intelligence analysts say any Jewish group virtually anywhere in the world is now a potential target.

* The investigation of a deadly bombing in Argentina has focused on the radical Islamic group Hezbollah and an offshoot called Ansarallah, both based in Lebanon, and on Iran as their patron. Iran and Hezbollah have denied involvement.

* Intelligence analysts believe the major motivation for the attacks was the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, with opposition to the Middle East peace process a secondary element.

* Some diplomats fear a new wave of terror could damage the peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbors. U.S. officials say they are confident the efforts would not be halted by an upsurge in terrorism.

North Finchley, Kensington district, London

July 26: Car bomb exploded outside the Israeli Embassy in London.

July 27: Car bomb exploded near a Jewish charity.

Site of bombing, Buenos Aires

July 18: Car bomb exploded at a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, killing at least 96 people.

Plane crash, Panama City

July 19: Plane exploded in Panama killing 21; 12 were Jewish

Source: AP