Order Code RL31119 CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web Terrorism Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors 2001 September 10 2001 Kenneth Katzman Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs Foreign Affairs Defense and Trade Division Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress Terrorism Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors 2001 Summary Signs continue to point to a decline in state sponsorship of terrorism as well as a rise in the scope of threat posed by the independent network of exiled Saudi dissident Usama bin Ladin During the 1980s and the early 1990s Iran and terrorist groups it sponsors were responsible for the most politically significant acts of Middle Eastern terrorism Although Iran continues to actively sponsor terrorist groups since 1997 some major factions within Iran have sought to change Iran’s image to that of a more constructive force in the region Pressured by international sanctions and isolation Sudan and Libya appear to have sharply reduced their support for international terrorist groups and Sudan has told the United States it wants to work to achieve removal from the “terrorism list ” Usama bin Ladin’s network which is independently financed and enjoys safe haven in Afghanistan poses an increasingly significant threat to U S interests in the Near East and perhaps elsewhere The primary goals of bin Ladin and his cohort are to oust pro-U S regimes in the Middle East and gain removal of U S troops from the region Based on U S allegations of past plotting by the bin Ladin network suggest that the network wants to strike within the United States itself The Arab-Israeli peace process is a longstanding major U S foreign policy interest and the Administration and Congress are concerned about any terrorist groups or state sponsors that oppose the Arab-Israeli peace process Possibly because of a breakdown in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process in September 2000 Palestinian Islamic organizations such as Hamas have stepped up operations against Israelis after a few years of diminished terrorist activity Some observers blame Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat accusing his regime of ending efforts to constrain these and other groups Others assert that Israel’s actions against the Palestinians have been provocative and have contributed to increased Palestinian support for violence against Israel There is no consensus on the strategies for countering terrorism in the Near East The United States in many cases differs with its allies on how to deal with state sponsors of terrorism most allied governments believe that engaging these countries diplomatically might sometimes be more effective than trying to isolate or punish them The United States is more inclined than its European allies to employ sanctions military action and legal pressure to compel state sponsors and groups to abandon terrorism In a few cases since 1998 the United States has pursued an engagement strategy by easing sanctions or conducting dialogue with those state sponsors willing to distance themselves from international terrorism The United States also believes that greater counterterrorism cooperation with allies and other countries including Russia is yielding benefits in reducing the threat from terrorism Contents Introduction 1 Radical Islamic Groups 4 Hizballah Party of God 4 Hizballah’s Persian Gulf Connections 5 Specially Designated Terrorists SDTs 6 Blocked Assets 6 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad PIJ 6 Blocked Assets 7 SDTs 7 The Islamic Group and Al-Jihad 8 SDTs 9 Al-Qaida Usama bin Ladin Network 9 SDTs August 20 1998 Executive Order 12 Blocked Assets 12 The Armed Islamic Group GIA 14 Harakat ul-Mujahidin Islamist Groups in Pakistan 14 Other Islamist Groups in Pakistan 15 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan IMU 16 Abu Sayyaf Group 16 Islamic Army of Aden 16 Radical Jewish Groups Kach and Kahane Chai 17 Blocked Assets 18 Leftwing and Nationalist Groups Palestine Liberation Organization PLO Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command PFLP-GC SDTs Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP SDTs Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine DFLP Palestine Liberation Front PLF SDTs Abu Nidal Organization ANO SDTs 18 18 Other Non-Islamist Organizations Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front DHKP C The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran PMOI 23 23 23 24 Middle Eastern Terrorism List Countries Iran Syria Libya 25 25 26 27 19 20 20 20 20 21 22 22 22 Sudan 28 Iraq 29 Countering Near Eastern Terrorism Military Force Unilateral Economic Sanctions Multilateral Sanctions Counterterrorism Cooperation Selective Engagement Legal Action The Domestic Front 31 31 32 34 34 35 36 36 List of Tables Table 1 Near Eastern Foreign Terrorist Organizations FTOs 3 Table 2 Blocked Assets of Middle East Terrorism List States 30 Terrorism Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors 2001 Introduction1 Please Note This report was completely immediately prior to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11 2001 It is offered as essential background for policymakers This report is an annual analysis of Near Eastern terrorist groups and countries on the U S “terrorism list ” a list of countries that the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of State have determined provide repeated support for international terrorism 2 Five out of the seven states currently on the terrorism list are located in the Near East region — Iran Iraq Syria Libya and Sudan The other two are Cuba and North Korea which will not be covered in this report The composition of the list has not changed since Sudan was added in 1993 The groups analyzed in this report include but are not limited to those designated as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” FTO’s pursuant to the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 P L 104-132 The last section of the report discusses significant themes in U S unilateral and multilateral efforts to combat terrorism in or from the region The State Department’s annual report on international terrorism entitled Patterns of Global Terrorism 20003 is a significant source for this report other sources include press reports and conversations with U S counter-terrorism officials experts investigative journalists and foreign diplomats Near Eastern terrorist groups and their state sponsors have been the focus of U S counter-terrorism policies for several decades Since the 1970s many of the most high-profile acts of terrorism against American citizens and targets have been conducted by these groups sometimes with the encouragement or at the instigation of their state sponsors Few recent terrorist attacks – either in or outside the Near East region – compare in scale to the August 7 1998 bombings of the U S embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed 224 persons including 12 Americans The October 12 2000 bombing of the U S destroyer Cole in the harbor of Aden Yemen killed 17 U S Navy personnel nearly sank the ship and caused at least a temporary halt in growing U S military relations with Yemen According to Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000 available on the U S Department of State's web site at http www state gov s ct rls pgtrpt 2000 hereafter cited as Patterns 2000 1 This report was prepared with the assistance of Patricia Niehoff 2 The determinations are made in accordance with Section 6 j of the Export Administration Act of 1979 50 U S C 2405 j 3 State Department Publication 10822 released April 2001 CRS-2 worldwide terrorism-related casualties increased to 405 in 2000 from 233 in 1999 but the number of attacks increased only slightly from 392 in 1999 to 423 in 2000 Of these 2000 totals only 16 of the 423 attacks and 19 of the 405 casualties occurred in the Middle East although Patterns covered only three months of the Palestinian uprising that began in late September 2000 Since 2001 began there have been dozens of terrorism-related Israeli casualties resulting from Palestinian suicide bomb attacks Thirty-one of attacks and 12 of the deaths during 2000 occurred in Eurasia Central Asia the Caucasus and Russia The terrorist groups analyzed often differ in their motivations objectives ideologies and levels of activity The Islamist groups remain generally the most active stating as their main objective the overthrow of secular pro-Western governments the derailment of the Arab-Israeli peace process the expulsion of U S forces from the region or the end of what they consider unjust occupation of Muslim lands Some groups such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK fight for cultural and political rights or the formation of separate ethnically-based states Table 1 below shows the 19 Near Eastern groups currently designated by the State Department as FTO’s The designations were mostly made when the FTO list was inaugurated in October 1997 and revised in October 1999 A revised list is due out in October 2001 A group can be added to the list at any time Al-Qaida the bin Ladin network was added on August 21 1998 and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was designated on September 25 2000 Under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act the designation of a group as an FTO blocks its assets in the United States and makes it a criminal offense for U S persons to provide it with material support or resources such as financial contributions Executive order 12947 of January 23 1995 also bars U S dealings contributions to or financial transactions with any individuals named as “Specially Designated Terrorists SDTs ” An SDT according to the Executive order is a person found to pose a significant risk of disrupting the Middle East peace process or to have materially supported acts of violence toward that end In contrast to Patterns 2000 this report analyzes the following The Palestine Liberation Organization PLO which has not been the subject of a separate section in Patterns since Patterns 1995 is analyzed in this report because of the debate over whether or not PLO leader Yasir Arafat is taking sufficient steps to prevent terrorism by other groups in areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority Since late 2000 there has been discussion about the degree to which certain PLO factions are involved in violence against Israel and whether or not they should be named as FTO’s When the FTO list was reviewed and re-issued in October 1999 the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine DFLP was dropped largely because it has reconciled with Arafat The group’s past involvement in terrorism and the recent revival of its operations against Israel are discussed in this report This report in contrast to last year’s contains a section on the Abu Sayyaf Group operating in the Philippines as well as analysis of several Pakistani CRS-3 Islamist groups that are fighting Indian control of part of Kashmir Province These groups are discussed in this report even though they operate outside the Near East region because of their alleged connections to the bin Ladin network and the Taliban of Afghanistan Table 1 Near Eastern Foreign Terrorist Organizations FTOs Group Description Terrorist Activity Level Abu Nidal Organization Palestinian nationalist Very Low Abu Sayyaf Group Filipino Islamist Moderate Armed Islamic Group Algerian Islamist Moderate Hamas Palestinian Islamist Very High Harakat ul-Mujahidin Kashmir Islamist High Hizballah Lebanese Shiite Islamist High Islamic Group Egyptian Islamist Moderate Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Uzbek Islamist Moderate Al-Jihad Egyptian Islamist Moderate Kach Jewish extremist Low Kahane Chai Jewish extremist Low Kurdistan Workers’ Party Kurdish anti-Turkey Low Palestinian Islamic Jihad Palestinian Islamist Very High Palestine Liberation Front Palestinian nationalist Very Low Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Palestinian Marxist Low Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command Palestinian nationalist Moderate People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran Iranian leftwing anti-regime Moderate Al-Qaida Bin Ladin Network Multinational Islamist Afghanistan-based Extremely High Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front Turkish leftwing anti-government Low CRS-4 Radical Islamic Groups Since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and particularly since the seizure of the U S Embassy in Tehran in November of that year radical Islam has attracted widespread press attention as the driving ideology of the most active Middle Eastern terrorist groups and state sponsors Of the 19 FTOs listed above ten are Islamic organizations Hizballah Party of God 4 Lebanon-based Hizballah appears to be groping for direction following Israel’s May 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon Having accomplished its main goal of ousting Israel from southern Lebanon some in the organization want it to change from a guerrilla and terrorist organization into a mainstream political movement focusing mainly on its work in parliament it holds 8 out of 128 total seats and its charity and reconstruction works with Lebanon’s Shiite community Hardliners in Hizballah want it to battle Israeli forces over the border and in the disputed Shib’a farms area 5 Other hardliners in the organization believe that the Israeli withdrawal validated its guerrilla strategy and are helping Palestinian groups apply similar tactics against Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Although initially encouraged by Hizballah’s relative restraint following the Israeli withdrawal Israel and the United States remain wary of Hizballah Hizballah’s 15 year military campaign against Israeli and Israeli surrogate forces in southern Lebanon – activity that is not technically considered terrorism by the U S State Department – often included rocket attacks on Israeli civilians Even though the United Nations has certified that Israel’s withdrawal is complete Hizballah has asserted that Israel still occupies some Lebanese territory the Shib’a farms and on that basis has conducted a few military attacks on Israel since the withdrawal In October 2000 Hizballah captured three Israeli soldiers in the Shib’a farms area and kidnapped an Israeli noncombatant whom it had lured to Lebanon Hizballah has indicated a willingness to return these captives in exchange for several Lebanese prisoners captured or kidnaped by Israel since the late 1980s Founded in 1982 by Lebanese Shiite clerics inspired by the Islamic revolutionary ideology of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini Hizballah’s original goal was to establish an Islamic republic in Lebanon During the 1980s Hizballah was a principal sponsor of anti-Western and particularly anti-U S terrorism It is known or suspected to have been involved in suicide truck bombings of the U S Embassy April 1983 the U S Marine barracks October 1983 killing 220 Marine 18 Navy and 3 Army personnel and the U S Embassy annex September 1984 all in Beirut It also hijacked TWA Flight 847 in 1985 killing a Navy diver Robert Stethem who was on board and its 4 For other names under which Hizballah or the other groups discussed in this paper operate see U S Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control “Terrorism What You Need to Know About U S Sanctions ” 5 For a further discussion of this dispute see CRS Report RL31078 The Shib’a Farms Dispute and Its Implications August 7 2001 by Alfred Prados CRS-5 factions were responsible for the detention of most if not all U S and Western hostages held in Lebanon during the 1980s and early 1990s Eighteen Americans were held hostage in Lebanon during that period three of whom were killed In the early 1990s Hizballah also demonstrated an ability to conduct terrorism far from the Middle East In May 1999 Argentina’s Supreme Court after an official investigation formally blamed Hizballah for the March 17 1992 bombing of Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires and issued an arrest warrant for Hizballah terrorist leader Imad Mughniyah Hizballah did not claim responsibility for the attack outright but it released a surveillance tape of the embassy implying responsibility In May 1998 FBI Director Louis Freeh told Argentina the FBI believes that Hizballah working with Iranian diplomats was also responsible for the July 18 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Jewish Mutual Association AMIA building in Buenos Aires that left 86 dead 6 In July 1999 Argentine investigators brought charges against 20 suspected Argentine collaborators in the AMIA bombings and the trial is set to begin in September 2001 Hizballah has continued to conduct surveillance of the U S Embassy in Lebanon and its personnel according to recent Patterns reports but no major terrorist attacks have been attributed to it since 1994 However according to numerous press reports and Hizballah leaders’ own statements the organization is helping Palestinian groups fight against Israel in the latest Palestinian uprising which began in September 2000 In late August 2001 Jordanian officials discovered a cache of rockets at a Hizballahowned location in Jordan igniting fears that Hizballah might fire rockets on Israel from there or might provide the weapons to Palestinian militants there or in the West Bank 7 Hizballah’s Persian Gulf Connections Hizballah maintains connections with similar groups in the Persian Gulf Saudi and Bahraini investigations of antiregime unrest have revealed the existence of local chapters of Hizballah composed of Shiite Muslims many of whom have studied in Iran’s theological seminaries and received terrorist training there and in Lebanon Saudi and U S officials believe that Saudi Shiite Muslims with connections to Lebanese Hizballah were responsible for the June 25 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex for U S military personnel near Dhahran Saudi Arabia This allegation was reaffirmed in the June 2001 U S indictments of 14 Khobar suspects According to Patterns 1998 in November 1998 Bahraini authorities uncovered an alleged bomb plot that they blamed on persons linked to Bahraini and Lebanese Hizballah Patterns 1999 reiterates that Hizballah receives “substantial” amounts of financial assistance weapons and political and organizational support from both Syria and Iran although it does not mention specific figures Then Secretary of State Christopher said on May 21 1996 that Iran gave Hizballah about $100 million per year a figure that U S officials have not since deviated from About 150 of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards remain in Lebanon to coordinate Iran’s aid to Hizballah Syria permits Iran to supply weapons to Hizballah through the international airport in 6 FBI Ties Iran to Argentine Bombing in ‘94 Washington Post August 8 1998 7 Slavin Barbara Rockets Found in Jordan Worry U S USA Today August 31 2001 CRS-6 Damascus although a recent Turkish shutdown of the air corridor connecting Iran and Syria has made Iranian deliveries more difficult Specially Designated Terrorists SDTs 8 Hizballah members named as SDTs include 1 Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah who is about 43 and has led Hizballah since 1993 2 Imad Mughniyah the 39 year old Hizballah intelligence officer and alleged holder of some Western hostages in the 1980s 3 Shaykh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah the 64-year-old senior Shiite cleric and leading spiritual figure of Hizballah and 4 Subhi Tufayli the 54 year old former Hizballah Secretary General who leads a radical breakaway faction of Hizballah Blocked Assets According to the Treasury Department’s “Terrorist Assets Report” for 2000 the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has seized $283 000 in assets belonging to 18 persons arrested in North Carolina in July 2000 on suspicion of smuggling goods to generate funds for Hizballah Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad PIJ Prior to the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian uprising it appeared that the bulk of the leadership of the Sunni Muslim Palestinian group Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement was accommodating Yasir Arafat’s leadership of the Palestinian Authority PA Hamas leaders also appeared resigned to an eventual final peace agreement between Israel and the PA although they continued to criticize Arafat as too eager to compromise with Israel Since the uprising began Hamas and its smaller ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad PIJ have escalated terrorist attacks against Israelis Hamas claimed responsibility for the June 1 2001 suicide bombing of the “Dolphinarium” discotheque in Tel Aviv which killed 21 and for an August 9 2001 suicide bombing at a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 18 including one American PIJ has conducted several recent suicide bombings many of which killed only the bomber s Many experts believe that the renewed terrorist activity is at least partly attributable to a breakdown in security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority – cooperation that was widely credited with keeping terrorist attacks to a minimum in the preceding few years The renewed terrorist threat has led Israel to adopt a policy – criticized by the United States and many other countries – of assassinating Hamas and PIJ activists to preempt their suspected attacks Hamas was formed by Muslim Brotherhood activists during the early stages of the earlier Palestinian uprising intifada in 1987 Its spiritual leader Shaykh Ahmad Yassin who is paralyzed was released from prison by Israel in October 1997 He seems to serve as a bridge between Hamas’ two main components — the extremists who orchestrate terrorist attacks primarily through a clandestine wing the Izz adDin al-Qassam Brigades and the more moderate elements affiliated with Hamas’ social services charity and educational institutions PIJ was in part inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1979 even though PIJ is a Sunni Muslim not a Shiite Muslim organization PIJ remains almost purely a guerrilla organization with no overt component It is led by Ramadan Abdullah Shallah a Gaza-born 43 year old 8 The list of SDTs is contained in the Office of Foreign Assets Control factsheet “Terrorism What You Need to Know About U S Sanctions ” CRS-7 academic who previously was an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida He was chosen leader in 1995 after his predecessor Fathi al-Shiqaqi was assassinated allegedly by Israeli agents Recent Patterns reports characterizes Hamas’ strength as “an unknown number of hardcore members and tens of thousands of supporters and sympathizers ” and PIJ’s strength as “unknown ” Hamas receives funding from Iran from wealthy private benefactors in the Persian Gulf monarchies and Palestinian expatriates according to Patterns 2000 which adds that the group conducts fundraising and propaganda activities in Western Europe and North America Many individual donors appear to believe their contributions go to charitable activities for poor Palestinians served by Hamas’ social services network and are not being used for terrorism PIJ is politically closer to Iran than is Hamas and apparently derives most of its funding from state sponsors especially Iran PIJ receives some logistical support from Syria according to Patterns 2000 Hamas and PIJ have not targeted the United States or Americans directly although Americans have died in attacks by these groups along with Israelis and often the bombers themselves Five out of the 65 killed in a series of four Hamas PIJ bombings in Israel during February - March 1996 were American citizens These bombings had the apparent effect of shifting public opinion toward Benjamin Netanyahu in Israeli national elections on May 29 1996 possibly proving decisive in his election victory as Prime Minister over then Labor Party leader Shimon Peres Neither group conducted major attacks in the run-up to the May 1999 Israeli elections although they did carry out attacks in an attempt to derail the negotiation and implementation of the October 23 1998 Israeli-Palestinian Wye River Memorandum In total the two groups have conducted about 80 suicide bombings or attempted suicide bombings killing more than 450 Israelis since the signing of the Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles in 1993 9 Blocked Assets The United States has blocked the assets of some alleged Hamas PIJ leaders using the authority of President Clinton’s January 23 1995 Executive order on Middle East terrorism As of the end of 2000 a total of about $17 000 in PIJ assets in the United States were blocked consisting of a bank account belonging to PIJ leader Shallah 10 SDTs Several Hamas and PIJ activists have been named as SDTs They include 1 Hamas founder Shaykh Ahmad Yassin 2 PIJ leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah 3 PIJ ideologist Abd al-Aziz Awda 4 Hamas political leader Musa Abu Marzuq who was barred from returning to Jordan when that country shut Hamas’s offices in Amman in August 1999 and 5 alleged U S fundraiser for Hamas Mohammad Salah 9 Pipes Daniel and Steven Emerson Rolling Back the Forces of Terror Wall Street Journal August 13 2001 10 These figures are contained in the 2000 Annual Report to Congress on Assets in the United States Belonging to Terrorist Countries or International Terrorist Organizations Office of Foreign Assets Control U S Department of Treasury January 2001 CRS-8 The Islamic Group and Al-Jihad Egyptian security authorities continue to gain the upper hand in their battle against the opposition Islamic Group and its ally Al-Jihad 11 groups that over the past several decades periodically have gone underground and then resurfaced There have been no large scale terrorist attacks by these groups since the Islamic Group’s November 17 1997 attack on tourists near Luxor and no attacks inside Egypt at all since August 1998 The gunmen in the Luxor attack killed 58 tourists and wounded 26 others and then committed suicide or were killed by Egyptian security forces Sensing that they are on the defensive and that terrorism has made them unpopular in late 1997 leaders of both groups including their common spiritual leader the 63 year old blind cleric Shaykh Umar Abd al-Rahman declared a ceasefire with the Egyptian government Muhammad Hamza who is in operational control of the Islamic Group in Egypt while Abd al-Rahman remains incarcerated in the United States has abided by the truce Despite the decline of the groups’ activities within Egypt factions of the groups that are in exile have gravitated to the network of Usama bin Ladin Several SDTs from the Islamic Group and Al-Jihad now serve in bin Ladin’s inner circle as his top lieutenants including Ayman al-Zawahiri Rifai Taha Musa and Abu Hafs Masri Mohammad Atef These leaders forswear any truce with the Egyptian government and also seek in concert with bin Ladin to attack U S interests directly Abd al-Rahman was not convicted specifically for the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York but he was convicted for related unsuccessful plots in the New York area and those convicted in the Trade Center bombing were allegedly associated with him There has been much speculation about the relationship if any between Abd al-Rahman and bin Ladin Both recruited fighters for the Afghan conflict against the Soviet Union through centers in the United States and elsewhere but it is not clear that the two men had any direct contact with each other in Afghanistan The two also had close connections to the Islamic government of Sudan although Abd al-Rahman left Sudan in 1990 before bin Ladin relocated there Abd al-Rahman’s two sons reportedly have been in or around Afghanistan since the war ended in 1989 Before the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing some of Abd al-Rahman’s aides reportedly had personal contact with bin Ladin associates in the United States 12 Although their recruiting presence has raised questions as to whether or not the United States gave bin Ladin or Abd alRahman assistance during the Afghan war the Central Intelligence Agency has told CRS that it found no evidence that the Agency provided any direct assistance to either of them The U S assistance program for the anti-Soviet groups in Afghanistan focused primarily on indigenous Afghan mujahedin and not Arab volunteers such as those sponsored by bin Ladin or Abd al-Rahman The Islamic Group and Al-Jihad formed in the early 1970s as offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood which opted to work within the political system after being 11 A faction of the Jihad operates under the name “Vanguards of Conquest ” 12 U S Sees Links in Brooklyn To World Terrorist Network New York Times October 22 1998 CRS-9 crushed by former President Gamal Abd al-Nasser Both seek to replace Egypt’s proWestern secular government with an Islamic state Al-Jihad was responsible for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in October 1981 The Islamic Group has been responsible for several attacks on high-ranking Egyptian officials including the killing of the People’s Assembly Speaker in October 1990 and the wounding of the Minister of Information in April 1993 The Islamic Group also has a nonviolent arm which recruits and builds support openly in poor neighborhoods in Cairo Alexandria and throughout southern Egypt and runs social service programs Al-Jihad has operated only clandestinely focusing almost exclusively on assassinations SDTs The following Egyptian Islamist figures have been named as SDTs 1 Shaykh Umar Abd al-Rahman who was acquitted in 1984 of inciting Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s assassination is in a medical detention facility in Missouri following his October 1995 conviction for planning terrorist conspiracies in the New York area 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri about 50 who is a top lieutenant of bin Ladin see below and was convicted in Egypt for the Sadat assassination 13 3 Rifa’i Taha Musa about 47 another top aide to bin Ladin 4 Abbud al-Zumar leader of the remnants of the original Jihad who is serving a 40 year sentence in Egypt 5 Talat Qasim about 44 a propaganda leader of the Islamic Group and 6 Muhammad Shawqi Islambouli about 46 the brother of the lead gunman in the Sadat assassination Islambouli a military leader of the Islamic Group also is believed to be associated with bin Ladin in Afghanistan Al-Qaida Usama bin Ladin Network Over the past six years Al-Qaida Arabic for “the base” the network of Usama bin Ladin has evolved from a regional threat to U S troops in the Persian Gulf to a global threat to U S citizens and national security interests In building this network bin Ladin has assembled a coalition of disparate radical Islamic groups of varying nationalities to work toward common goals – the expulsion of non-Muslim control or influence from Muslim-inhabited lands The network’s ideology laid out in several pronouncements signed by bin Ladin and his allies has led bin Ladin to support Islamic fighters or terrorists against Serb forces in Bosnia against Soviet forces in Afghanistan and now Russian forces in Chechnya against Indian control over part of Kashmir against secular or pro-Western governments in Egypt Algeria Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan and against U S troops and citizens in the Persian Gulf Somalia Yemen Jordan and against the U S mainland itself The backbone of the Saudi dissident’s network is the ideological and personal bond among the Arab volunteers who were recruited by bin Ladin for the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan 1979-1989 Financially it draws on the personal fortune of bin Ladin estimated at about $300 million but also reportedly including funding from many other sources Al-Qaida now encompasses members and factions of several major Islamic militant organizations including Egypt’s Islamic Group and Al-Jihad Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group Pakistan’s Harakat ulMujahidin the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and opposition groups in Saudi Arabia The network reportedly also has links to the Abu Sayyaf Islamic separatist 13 Egypt’s Most Wanted The Estimate December 19 1997 P 8 CRS-10 group in the Philippines Although there are few evident links to Hamas bin Ladin was a follower of Dr Abdullah al-Azzam a Palestinian of Jordanian origin who was influential in the founding of both Hamas and al-Qaida Reflecting its low level of early activity al-Qaida was not discussed in U S government reports until Patterns 1993 That report which did not mention a formal group name said that several thousand non-Afghan Muslims fought in the war against the Soviets and the Afghan Communist government during 1979 to 1992 14 Although the Taliban movement of Afghanistan which controls about 90% of that country gives bin Ladin and his subordinates safehaven bin Ladin does not appear to be acting on behalf of the Taliban or vice versa Bin Ladin’s network has been connected to a number of acts of terrorism Bin Ladin himself has been indicted by a U S court for involvement in several of them They include the following Bin Ladin has claimed responsibility for the December 1992 attempted bombings against 100 U S servicemen in Yemen — there to support U N relief operations in Somalia Operation Restore Hope No one was killed In press interviews bin Ladin has openly boasted that he provided weapons to anti-U S militias in Somalia during Operation Restore Hope and that his loyalists fought against U S forces there His involvement with the Somali militias appears to have strengthened his view that terrorism and lowtechnology combat can succeed in causing the United States to withdraw from military involvement abroad The four Saudi nationals who confessed to the November 13 1995 bombing of a U S military training facility in Riyadh Saudi Arabia admitted on Saudi television to being inspired by bin Ladin and other Islamic radicals Three of the confessors were veterans of conflicts in Afghanistan Bosnia and Chechnya According to Patterns 1997 members of bin Ladin’s organization might have aided the Islamic Group assassination attempt against Egyptian President Mubarak in Ethiopia in June 1995 There is no direct evidence that bin Ladin was involved in the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center However Patterns 1999 says that bin Ladin’s network was responsible for plots in Asia believed orchestrated by Ramzi Ahmad Yusuf who was captured in Pakistan brought to the United States and convicted in November 1997 of masterminding the Trade Center bombing The plots in Asia all of which failed were to assassinate the Pope during his late 1994 visit to the Philippines and President Clinton during his visit there in early 1995 to bomb the U S and Israeli embassies in Manila in late 1994 and to bomb U S trans-Pacific flights 14 Patterns of Global Terrorism 1993 Released April 1994 p 4 CRS-11 The August 7 1998 U S embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania which killed 224 persons including 12 American citizens occurred just after a six month period in which bin Ladin had issued repeated and open threats including a February 1998 pronouncement calling for the killing of U S civilians and servicemen worldwide On August 20 1998 the United States launched cruise missiles on bin Ladin’s training camps in eastern Afghanistan based on U S evidence of his network’s involvement in the bombings The United States also struck a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that the Administration alleged was linked to bin Ladin and was producing chemical weapons agents U S officials add that the bombings were intended to disrupt planning for a new attack For their alleged role in the bombings 17 alleged members of al-Qaida have been indicted by a U S court including bin Ladin Four of the six in U S custody have been tried and convicted three are in custody in Britain In December 1999 U S and Jordanian law enforcement authorities uncovered and thwarted two alleged plots – one in the United States and one in Jordan – to attack U S citizens celebrating the new millennium The United States plot allegedly to bomb Los Angeles international airport was orchestrated by a pro-bin Ladin cell of Algerian Armed Islamic Group members coming from Canada In June 2000 Jordan tried 28 who allegedly were planning to attack tourists during millennium festivities in that country but 15 of those charged are still at large Also in June 2000 Lebanon placed 29 alleged followers of bin Ladin on trial for planning terrorist attacks in Jordan The presence of bin Ladin cells in Jordan and Lebanon – coupled with Israeli arrests of alleged bin Ladin operatives in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – suggests that Al-Qaida might plan acts of terrorism in connection with the Palestinian uprising Patterns 2000 says that “supporters” of bin Ladin are suspected in the October 12 2000 bombing of the destroyer U S S Cole in the harbor of the port of Aden Yemen The blast which severely damaged the ship killed 17 and injured 39 Navy personnel Since the August 1998 U S retaliatory strikes on the Afghan camps and the Sudan pharmaceutical plant the Taliban leadership has tried to dissociate itself from bin Ladin by asserting that he is no longer its guest However Taliban officials have rebuffed repeated U S requests to extradite him claiming that the United States has not provided the Taliban with convincing evidence that bin Ladin might have been involved in anti-U S terrorism Adding to the U S concerns several hundred U S shoulder-held anti-aircraft weapons “Stingers” are still at large in Afghanistan and because of bin Ladin’s financial resources it is highly likely he has acquired some of them U S officials say bin Ladin’s fighters have experimented with chemical weapons and might be trying to purchase nuclear or other weapons of mass CRS-12 destruction materials 15 From those comments it is reasonable to assume that bin Ladin’s organization has at least a rudimentary chemical weapons capability 16 SDTs August 20 1998 Executive Order President Clinton’s August 20 1998 Executive Order 13099 amended an earlier January 23 1995 Executive order 12947 by naming al-Qaida and its aliases the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places the Islamic Salvation Foundation and the Group for the Preservation of the Holy Sites as an FTO The effect of the order was to ban U S financial transactions with bin Ladin’s organization and to allow U S law enforcement to freeze any bin Ladin assets in the United States that can be identified The order also named bin Ladin as an SDT along with Rifai Taha Musa of the Egyptian Islamic Group see that section above and another associate Abu Hafs al-Masri Mohammad Atef Atef and AlJihad guerrilla leader Ayman al-Zawahiri see above were indicted along with bin Ladin on November 4 1998 for the Kenya Tanzania bombings both are viewed as potential successors to bin Ladin 17 A $5 million reward is offered for the capture of Atef who according to the U S indictment against him was sent by bin Ladin to Somalia in 1992 to determine how to combat U S troops sent there for Operation Restore Hope Zawahiri a medical doctor met bin Ladin in the late 1980s in Afghanistan and is considered his closest adviser on policy and strategy Blocked Assets No assets have been firmly linked to bin Ladin in the United States or elsewhere and hence none are frozen at this time according to the Treasury Department’s report on terrorist assets for 2000 U S officials say they are encouraging other governments to help dismantle bin Ladin’s financial empire and they have persuaded Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to end the handling of some of bin Ladin’s money by a few of their banks 18 About $254 million in assets of the Taliban movement are blocked under Executive order 13129 issued in July 1999 on the grounds that the Taliban continued to harbor bin Ladin 15 Weiser Benjamin U S Says Bin Laden Aide Tried to Get Nuclear Material New York Times September 26 1998 West Julian Atomic Haul Raises Fears of Bin Laden Terror Bomb London Sunday Telegraph April 23 2000 16 For further information on the Taliban’s relationship with bin Ladin see CRS Report RL30588 Afghanistan Current Issues and U S Policy Concerns June 22 2000 by Kenneth Katzman 17 Loeb Vernon As U S Targets Bin Laden 2 Top Aides Also Draw Scrutiny Washington Post July 3 2000 18 Risen James and Benjamin Weiser U S Officials Say Aid for Terrorists Came Through Two Persian Gulf Nations New York Times July 8 1999 CRS-13 Usama bin Ladin Usama bin Ladin born July 30 1957 as the seventeenth of twenty sons of a now deceased Saudi construction magnate of Yemeni origin gained prominence during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union In 1989 after the Afghan war ended he returned to Saudi Arabia to work in his family’s business the Bin Ladin Construction group although his radical Islamic contacts caused him to run afoul of Saudi authorities In 1991 bin Ladin relocated to Sudan with the approval of Sudan’s National Islamic Front NIF leader Hasan al-Turabi There in concert with NIF leaders he built a network of businesses including an Islamic bank an import-export firm and firms that exported agricultural products An engineer by training bin Ladin also used his family connections in the construction business to help Sudan build roads and airport facilities The businesses in Sudan some of which apparently are still operating enabled him to offer safehaven and employment in Sudan to al-Qaida members promoting their involvement in radical Islamic movements in their countries of origin especially Egypt as well as anti-U S terrorism He reportedly has some business interests in Yemen as well and is believed to have investments in European and Asian firms Bin Ladin has said publicly that while he was in Sudan there were a few assassination attempts against him In the early 1990s he founded a London-based group the Advisory and Reform Committee that distributed literature against the Saudi regime As a result of bin Ladin’s opposition to the ruling Al Saud family Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship in 1994 and his family disavowed him although some of his brothers reportedly have maintained contact with him He has no formal role in the operations of the Bin Ladin Construction group which continues to receive contracts from the Saudi government and from other Arab countries In May 1996 following strong U S and Egyptian pressure Sudan expelled him and he returned to Afghanistan under protection of the dominant Taliban movement On June 7 1999 bin Ladin was placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted List ” and a $5 million reward is offered for his capture Bin Ladin is estimated to have about $300 million in personal financial assets with which he funds his network of as many as 3 000 Islamic militants Al-Qaida cells have been identified or suspected in Afghanistan Pakistan Bangladesh Saudi Arabia Qatar Yemen Jordan Egypt Libya Lebanon Algeria Tunisia Mauritania Sudan Azerbaijan Uzbekistan Tajikistan Chechnya Somalia Eritrea Kenya Tanzania Uganda Ethiopia other parts of Africa Malaysia the Philippines Uruguay Ecuador Bosnia Kosovo Albania the United Kingdom Canada and allegedly inside the United States itself Sources State Department Factsheet Usama bin Ladin Islamic Extremist Financier August 1996 ABC News Nightline June 10 1998 Defense Department factsheet August 20 1998 conversations with U S counter-terrorism officials CRS-14 The Armed Islamic Group GIA The Armed Islamic Group GIA after its initials in French is experiencing pressure in Algeria similar to that faced by Egyptian Islamist groups in Egypt According to Patterns 2000 a GIA splinter group the Salafi Group for Call and Combat is now the more active armed group inside Algeria although it is considered somewhat less violent in its tactics than is the GIA Led by Antar Zouabri the GIA is highly fragmented 19 in part because it does not have an authoritative religious figure who can hold its various factions together and arbitrate disputes Some GIA members in exile appear to have gravitated to bin Ladin’s network according to information coming out of the thwarted December 1999 plot to detonate a bomb in the United States 20 As noted above it now appears that the target of the plot was Los Angeles international airport Founded by Algerian Islamists who fought in Afghanistan the GIA formed as a breakaway faction of the then legal Islamic Salvation Front FIS political party in 1992 after the regime canceled the second round of parliamentary elections on fears of an FIS victory According to Patterns 2000 the GIA has killed over 100 expatriates in Algeria mostly Europeans since 1992 but in a possible indication of regime counterterrorism success no foreigners have been killed in Algeria since 1997 Over the past six years the GIA has conducted a campaign of civilian massacres sometimes wiping out entire villages in their areas of operations in an effort to intimidate rival groups and to demonstrate that the government lacks control over the country The GIA conducted its most lethal terrorist attack on December 31 1997 when it killed 400 Algerian civilians in a town 150 miles southwest of Algiers according to Patterns 1997 It should be noted that there are allegations that elements of the regime’s security forces and other opposition groups have also conducted civilian massacres Among its acts outside Algeria the GIA hijacked an Air France flight to Algiers in December 1994 and the group is suspected of bombing the Paris subway system on December 3 1996 killing four Patterns 2000 repeats previous descriptions of the GIA’s strength as probably between several hundred to several thousand The organization receives financial and logistical aid from Algerian expatriates many of whom reside in Western Europe and in Canada Harakat ul-Mujahidin Islamist Groups in Pakistan The Harakat ul-Mujahidin HUM is a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group that seeks to end Indian control of Muslim-inhabited parts of the divided region of Kashmir It is composed of militant Islamist Pakistanis and Kashmiris as well as Arab veterans of the Afghan war against the Soviet Union who view the Kashmir struggle as a “jihad” Islamic crusade The HUM was included in the original October 1997 FTO designations when its name was Harakat al-Ansar It subsequently changed its 19 For more information see CRS Report 98-219 Algeria Developments and Dilemmas by Carol Migdalovitz updated August 18 1998 20 Evidence Is Seen Linking Bin Laden to Algerian Group New York Times January 27 2000 Burns John and Craig Pyes Radical Islamic Network May Have Come to U S New York Times December 31 1999 CRS-15 name to Harakat ul-Mujahidin possibly in an attempt to avoid the U S sanctions that accompanied its designation as an FTO Under its new name the group was redesignated as an FTO in October 1999 An offshoot of the HUM kidnapped and reportedly later killed five Western tourists in Kashmir in 1995 The HUM is believed responsible for the December 1999 hijacking of an Indian airliner because the hijackers demanded the release of an HUM leader Masood Azhar in exchange for the release of the jet and its passengers one of whom was killed by the hijackers The group appears to be allied with or part of bin Ladin’s militant Islamic network although its goal is the expulsion of Indian troops that occupy parts of Kashmir – it does not appear to be part of bin Ladin’s more far-reaching struggle against the United States A senior leader of the HUM Fazlur Rehman Khalil signed bin Ladin’s February 1998 pronouncement calling for terrorist attacks on American troops and civilians and according to Patterns 1999 some HUM fighters were killed in the August 20 1998 U S retaliatory strikes on bin Ladin’s training camps in Afghanistan Khalil stepped down in February 2000 as leader of the HUM in favor of his second-in-command Faruq Kashmiri Kashmiri is not viewed as closely linked to bin Ladin as is Khalil and the move could suggest that the HUM wants to distance itself from bin Ladin Khalil remains as Secretary General of the organization Other Islamist Groups in Pakistan The HUM fights alongside other Pakistani Islamist groups that have not been named as FTOs They include the following Jaish-e-Mohammed JEM Army of Mohammed This is a more radical splinter group of the HUM formed by Masood Azhar see above in February 2000 The group is analyzed in a section of Patterns 2000 but it is not named as an FTO The group which attracted a large percentage up to 75% of HUM fighters who defected to it when it was formed is politically aligned with bin Ladin the Taliban and the pro-Taliban Islamic Scholars Society Jamiat-i Ulema-i Islam party of Pakistan It probably receives some funds from bin Ladin according to Patterns 2000 Lashkar-e-Tayyiba Army of the Righteous is analyzed separately in Patterns 2000 as “one of the three largest and best trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India ” Led by Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and operating through a missionary organization known as the MDI Center for Islamic Call and Guidance its fighters are Pakistanis from religious schools throughout Pakistan as well as Arab volunteers for the Kashmir “jihad ” A few other Kashmir-related groups are mentioned in press reports or in Patterns 2000 but they are not analyzed separately in the report or discussed in depth One is the Harakat-ul Jihad Islami Islamic Jihad Movement many of whose fighters defected to the Jaish-e-Mohammed when it was formed Another group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has called for attacks on the United States and declared itself an ally of bin Ladin The Hizb-ul Mujahedin Mujahedin Party is an older more established and somewhat more moderate group with few apparent links to bin Ladin or to Arab volunteers for the Kashmir struggle CRS-16 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan IMU The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan IMU was named as an FTO on September 25 2000 after kidnaping four U S citizens who were mountain climbing in Kyrgyzstan in August 2000 The IMU’s primary objective is to replace the secular authoritarian government of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov with an Islamic regime and it is believed responsible for setting off five bombs in Tashkent Uzbekistan on February 16 1999 One of the bombs exploded in a government building just minutes before Karimov was to attend a meeting there The government of Uzbekistan blamed the plot on two IMU leaders Tahir Yuldashev and Juma Namangani both of whom are reported to enjoy safehaven in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan 21 Among its insurgency operations in August 1999 Namangani led about 800 IMU guerrillas in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a base in Kyrgyzstan from which to launch cross-border attacks into Uzbekistan In the course of their operations the IMU guerrillas kidnaped four Japanese geologists and eight Kyrgyz soldiers In early August 2000 about 100 guerrillas presumably linked to the IMU seized several villages just inside Uzbekistan on the Uzbekistan-Tajikistan border At the same time a related group of guerrillas battled security forces in neighboring Kyrgyzstan Some press reports indicate that bin Ladin contributes funds to the IMU 22 although Patterns 2000 says only that the IMU receives “support from other Islamic extremist movements in Central Asia ” Abu Sayyaf Group The Abu Sayyaf Group which is a designated FTO is an Islamic separatist organization operating in the southern Philippines Although it is not known to operate in the Near East region Abu Sayyaf is discussed in this report because of its alleged ties to Islamic extremists based in Afghanistan possibly including bin Ladin The group led by Khadafi Janjalani raises funds for operations and recruitment by kidnaping foreign hostages As of late August 2001 it was holding about 20 hostages including two American citizens in the southern Philippines It has also expanded its kidnapings into Malaysia and is suspected of shipping weapons to Muslim extremists in Indonesia 23 Islamic Army of Aden The Islamic Army of Aden also called the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army is a Yemen-based radical Islamic organization It has not been designated by the State Department as an FTO and it is not analyzed separately in Patterns 2000 although it is mentioned in that report’s discussion of terrorism in Yemen Little is known about 21 Kyrgyz Lawmaker to Extend Stay in Kabul to Push Talks Reuters September 29 1999 22 Kinzer Stephen Islamic Militants With Japanese Hostages Hold Kyrgyz at Bay New York Times October 18 1999 23 Malaysia Probes Abu Sayyaf Link in Gun Racket - Reports Dow Jones Newswire August 21 2001 CRS-17 the group but it advocates the imposition of Islamic law in Yemen and the lifting of international sanctions against Iraq and opposes the use of Yemeni ports and bases by U S or other Western countries Some of the group’s members are suspected of having links to bin Ladin and the group was one of three to claim responsibility for the bombing of the U S S Cole on October 12 2000 However some experts note that the Islamic Army of Aden is not as a whole closely linked to bin Ladin and is therefore not the likely perpetrator of that attack The group first achieved notoriety in December 1998 when it kidnaped sixteen tourists including two Americans Three British and one Australian tourist were killed in the course of a rescue attempt by Yemeni security forces the rest were saved The group’s leader at the time Zein al-Abidine al-Midhar Abu Hassan admitted to the kidnaping and was executed by the Yemeni government in October 1999 No new leader has been publicly identified Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah al-Salih has publicly vowed to eradicate terrorism from Yemen and there is no evidence that the government as a matter of policy supports radical Islamist groups or alleged bin Ladin sympathizers living in Yemen However there are areas of Yemen under tenuous government control and experts believe that the Yemeni government has to some extent tolerated the presence of Islamic extremists in Yemen Some government workers are believed to have personal ties to individual Islamists there Yemen has interrogated many people and made a number of arrests in the Cole attack but some U S law enforcement officials are unsatisfied with its cooperation in that investigation The former South Yemen People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen PDRY was on the U S terrorism list during 1979-1990 for supporting leftwing Arab terrorist groups but was removed from the list when South Yemen merged with the more conservative North Yemen in 1990 to form the Republic of Yemen Radical Jewish Groups Kach and Kahane Chai Some radical Jewish groups are as opposed to the Arab-Israeli peace process as are radical Islamic groups The Jewish groups which derive their support primarily from Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have been willing to engage in terrorism to try to derail the process The incidents involving these Jewish groups have declined in recent years although settlers possibly linked to Kach and Kahane Chai have attacked Palestinians throughout the latest Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000 Kach was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane who was assassinated in the United States in 1990 24 Kahane Chai Kahane Lives was founded by Kahane’s son Binyamin following his father’s assassination Binyamin Kahane and his wife were killed on December 31 2000 by a Palestinian group calling itself the “Martyr’s of AlAqsa ” The two Jewish movements seek to expel all Arabs from Israel and expand 24 El Sayyid Nosair a radical Islamist associated with Shaykh Abd al-Rahman and others involved in the World Trade Center bombing was convicted of weapons possession for the attack on Kahane but not the murder itself CRS-18 Israel’s boundaries to include the occupied territories and parts of Jordan They also want strict implementation of Jewish law in Israel To try to accomplish these goals the two groups have organized protests against the Israeli government and threatened Palestinians in Hebron and elsewhere in the West Bank On March 13 1994 the Israeli Cabinet declared both to be terrorist organizations under a 1948 Terrorism Law The declaration came after the groups publicly stated their support for a February 25 1994 attack on a Hebron mosque by a radical Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein who was a Kach affiliate and an immigrant from the United States The attack killed 29 worshipers and wounded about 150 Patterns 2000 says that the numerical strength of Kach and Kahane Chai is unknown and repeats previous assertions that both receive support from sympathizers in the United States and Europe Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by Israeli extremist Yigal Amir in November 1995 shortly after signing the Oslo II interim agreement with the Palestinians Neither Amir nor his two accomplices were known to be formal members of Kach or Kahane Chai although Amir appears to espouse ideologies similar to those of the two groups Blocked Assets According to the Terrorist Assets Report for 2000 about $200 belonging to Kahane Chai has been blocked since 1995 Leftwing and Nationalist Groups Some Middle Eastern terrorist groups are guided by Arab nationalism or leftwing ideologies rather than Islamic fundamentalism With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of much of their backing from state sponsors the leftwing and nationalist groups became progressively less active since the late 1980s and were largely eclipsed by militant Islamic groups However some of the leftwing nationalist groups have reactivated their terrorist and commando operations during the Palestinian uprising Palestine Liberation Organization PLO The PLO formally renounced the use of terrorism in 1988 and it reaffirmed that commitment as part of its September 1993 mutual recognition agreement with Israel The PLO has not been named an FTO by the State Department and Patterns 1995 was the last Patterns report to contain a formal section analyzing the PLO The PLO is analyzed in this CRS report because of the debate in Congress and among observers over whether or not the PLO as the power behind the Palestinian Authority PA is taking sufficient steps to prevent Hamas PIJ and others from conducting terrorist attacks against Israelis This debate has intensified since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000 – the uprising has been accompanied by a significant increase in the frequency of Hamas and PIJ terrorist attacks Patterns 2000 generally credits the PA with working with Israel to disrupt Hamas and PIJ attacks against Israel in the first half of 2000 but the report notes Israel’s dissatisfaction with PA anti-terrorism cooperation after the uprising began Patterns 2000 and an Administration report to Congress on PLO compliance with its commitments covering June - December 2000 cite Israeli allegations that factions CRS-19 of the PLO encouraged or participated in violence against Israel The factions mentioned include the Fatah movement a wing of Fatah called the “Tanzim” Organization and a PLO security apparatus called Force 17 The PLO compliance report added that Israeli officials are divided on the degree to which senior PLO and PA officials were willing or able to halt violence by these factions Neither report clearly states whether or not the U S government concurs with the Israeli allegations although U S officials acknowledge that the inclusion of the Israeli views in these reports suggests a degree of U S concurrence On the basis of these allegations some Members of Congress maintain that some or all of Fatah the Tanzim and Force 17 should be designated as FTO’s Although some Israelis no longer view Arafat as a partner for peace others note than many Palestinians have looked to Arafat and the PLO for leadership for more than three decades and that there is no viable alternative to him Yasir Arafat who was born August 1 1929 used the backing of his Fatah guerrilla organization to become chairman of the PLO in 1969 After the PLO and other Palestinian guerrillas were forced out of Jordan in 1970 and 1971 cross border attacks on Israel became more difficult and some constituent groups under the PLO umbrella resorted to international terrorism In the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war international efforts to promote Arab-Israeli peace caused Arafat to limit terrorist attacks largely to targets within Israel Lebanon and the occupied territories Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command PFLP-GC Ahmad Jibril a former captain in the Syrian army formed the PFLP-GC in October 1968 as a breakaway faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP see below which he considered too willing to compromise with Israel He also believed that a conventional military arm was needed to complement terrorist operations and the group operates a small tank force at its bases in Lebanon according to observers During Israel’s occupation of a strip of southern Lebanon which ended in May 2000 Jibril’s several hundred guerrillas fought against Israeli forces alongside Hizballah Recent Patterns reports have not attributed any significant terrorist attacks to the PFLP-GC in the past few years In May 2001 Jibril claimed responsibility for shipping a boatload of weapons to the Palestinians in the occupied territories although the shipment was intercepted by Israel’s navy Probably because of Jibril’s service in the Syrian military Syria has always been the chief backer of the PFLP-GC giving it logistical and military support In the late 1980s the PFLP-GC also built a close relationship with Iran and it receives Iranian financial assistance There have been persistent reports that Iran approached the PFLP-GC to bomb a U S passenger jet in retaliation for the July 3 1988 U S Navy’s downing of an Iranian passenger airplane Iran Air flight 655 The PFLP-GC allegedly pursued such an operation and abandoned it or according to other speculation handed off the operation to Libya in what became a successful effort to bomb Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988 25 Patterns 2000 drops assertions in 25 Closing In on the Pan Am Bombers U S News and World Report May 22 1989 p 23 CRS-20 previous Patterns reports that Libya formerly a major financier of the group retains ties to the PFLP-GC SDTs Jibril who is about 63 and his deputy Talal Muhammad Naji about 70 have been named as SDTs Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP The PFLP’s opposition to Arafat and to eventual peace with Israel appears to be weakening The PFLP opposed the Palestinians’ decision to join the Madrid peace process and suspended its participation in the PLO after the September 1993 IsraelPLO Declaration of Principles In August 1999 in apparent recognition of Arafat’s growing control over Palestinian territory the PFLP held reconciliation talks with him Arafat reportedly invited the PFLP to send a delegate to the U S -brokered summit talks with Israel at Camp David in July 2000 but the PFLP refused Its terrorist wing had been almost completely inactive in the four years prior to the latest Palestinian uprising but since then has conducted five car bombings and a few other attacks on Israelis according to Israeli officials Patterns 2000 repeats previous estimates of the PFLP’s strength as about 800 and says that the group receives logistical assistance and safehaven from Syria The PFLP is headquartered in Damascus and it reportedly has training facilities in Syrian-controlled areas of Lebanon The PFLP was founded in December 1967 following the Arab defeat in the Six Day War with Israel in June of that year by Marxist-Leninist ideologue and medical doctor George Habash a Christian The PFLP was active in international terrorism during the late 1960s and the 1970s on September 6 1970 PFLP guerrillas simultaneously hijacked three airliners and after evacuating the passengers blew up the aircraft SDTs George Habash is the only PFLP leader named as an SDT Habash who is about 75 years old suffered a stroke in 1992 and was replaced as PFLP SecretaryGeneral in July 2000 by his longtime deputy Abu Ali Mustafa also known as Mustafa al-Zubari In October 1999 in the wake of the PFLP’s reconciliation talks with Arafat Israel allowed Mustafa to return to Palestinian-controlled territory from exile Mustafa who was about 63 was killed on August 27 2001 by an Israeli missile strike on his West Bank office After the Israeli attack the United States reiterated its opposition to Israel’s policy of targeted killings as an excessive use of force and unhelpful to efforts to quiet the ongoing violence Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine DFLP 26 The DFLP still led by its 67-year-old founder Nayif Hawatmeh abandoned its call for the destruction of Israel in the 1980s However it sought stringent conditions for Palestinian participation in the October 1991 Madrid peace conference and opposed the September 1993 Israel-PLO mutual recognition accords Although it still 26 The DFLP has splintered into factions but the one headed by Nayif Hawatmeh dominates the organization and is the one discussed in this paper CRS-21 opposes the interim agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinians since 1993 the DFLP began reconciling with Arafat in August 1999 and stated that it might recognize Israel if there were a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace In response to the DFLP’s apparent moderation the State Department removed the group from the list of FTOs when that list was revised in October 1999 Also that month Israel permitted Hawatmeh to relocate to the Palestinian-controlled areas although he apparently has not moved there permanently Patterns 1999 is the first Patterns report to exclude the group from its analysis of terrorist organizations In July 2000 the DFLP was part of the Palestinian delegation to the U S -brokered Israeli-Palestinian final status summit negotiations at Camp David However since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000 the group has claimed responsibility for a few attacks on Israeli military patrols and settlers in the occupied territories and has openly encouraged the Palestinian uprising Two commandos from the group attacked a heavily fortified Israeli military position in the Gaza Strip on August 25 2001 and killed three Israeli soldiers the two guerrillas were killed in the exchange of fire The DFLP formed in 1969 as an offshoot of the PFLP The DFLP’s most noted terrorist attack was the May 1974 takeover of a school in Maalot in northern Israel in which 27 schoolchildren were killed and 134 people wounded It thereafter confined itself largely to small-scale border raids into Israel and infrequent attacks on Israeli soldiers officials and civilians in Israel and the occupied territories Recent Patterns reports estimate the total strength for all major factions of the DFLP is about 500 The DFLP may still receive some financial assistance from Syria where it has its headquarters Palestine Liberation Front PLF The PLF founded in 1976 as a splinter faction of the PFLP-GC has greatly declined as a terrorist threat The group’s last major attack was a failed raid on the Israeli resort town of Eilat in May 1992 The leader of the most prominent PLF faction Abu Abbas real name Muhammad Zaydun has always enjoyed close personal ties to Arafat Abbas at first opposed Arafat’s decision to seek peace with Israel but since the mid-1990s he has accommodated to that decision In April 1996 Abu Abbas voted to amend the PLO Charter to eliminate clauses calling for Israel’s destruction In April 1998 Israel allowed Abu Abbas to relocate to the Gaza Strip from Iraq where he had settled after his expulsion from Damascus in 1985 During its period of terrorist activity the PLF conducted several high-profile attacks Its most well-known operation was the October 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in which the group murdered disabled U S citizen Leon Klinghoffer and held the other passengers hostage for two days Abu Abbas and his team surrendered to Egyptian forces in exchange for a promise of safe passage They were apprehended at a NATO airbase in Italy after U S aircraft forced down the Egyptian airliner flying them to safehaven Abu Abbas who was not on board the Achille Lauro during the hijacking was released by the Italian government but later sentenced in absentia A warrant for his arrest is outstanding in Italy but the Justice Department dropped a U S warrant in 1996 for lack of evidence The four other CRS-22 hijackers were convicted and sentenced in Italy 27 On April 30 1996 the Senate voted 99-0 on a resolution S Res 253 seeking Abu Abbas’ detention and extradition to the United States On May 30 1990 the PLF unsuccessfully attempted a seaborne landing from Libya on a Tel Aviv beach Arafat refused to condemn the raid and as a consequence the United States broke off its dialogue with the PLO which had begun in 1988 The dialogue resumed in September 1993 following the mutual Israeli-PLO recognition agreement SDTs Abu Abbas who was born in 1948 has been named an SDT He underwent guerrilla training in the Soviet Union 28 Abu Nidal Organization ANO The international terrorist threat posed by the Abu Nidal Organization has receded because of Abu Nidal’s reported health problems leukemia and a heart condition internal splits friction with state sponsors and clashes with Arafat loyalists It still has a few hundred members and a presence in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon but it has not attacked Western targets since the late 1980s During the 1970s and 1980s the ANO carried out over 90 terrorist attacks in 20 countries killing about 300 people One of its most well-known operations was a December 27 1985 attack at airports in Rome and Vienna in which 18 died and 111 were injured One month earlier ANO members hijacked Egypt Air 648 resulting in the deaths of 60 people On September 6 1986 ANO gunmen killed 22 at a synagogue Neve Shalom in Istanbul The group is suspected of assassinating top Arafat aides in Tunis in 1991 and a Jordanian diplomat in Lebanon in January 1994 Also known as the Fatah Revolutionary Council the ANO was created in 1974 when Abu Nidal real name Sabri al-Banna then Arafat’s representative in Iraq broke with the PLO over Arafat’s willingness to compromise with Israel U S engagement with Iraq in the early stages of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war contributed to Iraq’s expulsion of Abu Nidal to Syria in November 1983 but Syria expelled the group four years later to reduce scrutiny on the country as a sponsor of terrorism Abu Nidal left his next home Libya in April 1998 after a schism between pro and anti-Arafat members of Abu Nidal’s group He relocated to Cairo where he stayed until December 1998 when more infighting caused his presence in Egypt to become public and therefore a foreign policy problem for Egypt He has been in Iraq since but there is no hard evidence that Abu Nidal is reviving his international terrorist network on his own or on Baghdad’s behalf 29 SDTs Abu Nidal who was born in 1937 in Jaffa part of what is now Israel is the only ANO member named an SDT He faces no legal charges in the United States according to an ABC News report of August 25 1998 but he is wanted in Britain and Italy His aide Nimer Halima was arrested in Austria in January 2000 27 Of the four one is still in jail two were paroled in 1991 and one Yusuf al-Mulqi escaped in 1996 while on prison leave 28 Holmes Paul Achille Lauro Mastermind Looks Back at 50 Reuters June 24 1998 29 Ibid CRS-23 Other Non-Islamist Organizations Three groups designated as FTOs primarily are attempting to influence the domestic political structures or the foreign policies of their countries of origin Two of them operate against the government of Turkey and the other against the government of Iran Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK 30 The PKK appears to be in transition from a guerrilla and terrorist organization to a political movement It was founded in 1974 by political science student Abdullah Ocalan with the goal of establishing a Marxist Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey where there is a predominantly Kurdish population It claims to have changed its goals somewhat to focus on greater cultural and political rights within Turkey The PKK generally targeted government forces and civilians in eastern Turkey but it has operated elsewhere in the country and attacked Turkish diplomatic and commercial facilities in several Western European cities in 1993 and 1995 The United States sides with Turkey in viewing the PKK as a terrorist organization but wants to see a peaceful resolution of the conflict and encourages Turkey to provide greater cultural and linguistic rights to the Kurds The PKK’s transition accelerated in October 1998 when Turkish military and diplomatic pressure forced Syria to expel PKK leader Ocalan and the PKK Ocalan who is about 52 sought refuge in several countries but Turkey captured him in Kenya in early 1999 and tried him On June 29 1999 a Turkish court sentenced him to death for treason and the murder of about 30 000 Turks since 1984 although the implementation of the sentence has been suspended pending appeals to the European Court of Human Rights In August 1999 he called on his supporters to cease armed operations against the Turkish government a decision affirmed at a PKK congress in January 2000 PKK violence against the Turkish government has since subsided but not ended and many of the PKK’s estimated 5 000 fighters remain encamped and active across the border in Iran and Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front DHKP C The DHKP C is becoming more active after a long period of virtual dormancy This Marxist organization still commonly referred to by its former name Dev Sol was formed in 1978 to oppose Turkey’s pro-Western tilt and its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO Since the late 1980s the DHKP C which corresponds to its acronym in Turkish has concentrated attacks on Turkish military and security officials but it has since 1990 attacked foreign interests according to Patterns 2000 The group assassinated two U S military contractors in Turkey to protest the Gulf War against Iraq and it rocketed the U S consulate in Istanbul in 1992 An attempt by the group to fire an anti-tank weapon at the 30 For more information on the PKK see CRS Report 94-267 Turkey’s Kurdish Imbroglio and U S Policy by Carol Migdalovitz Mar 18 1994 The PKK is distinct from Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish organizations that the State Department does not consider terrorist and which in the case of Iraqi Kurds benefit from U S support CRS-24 consulate in June 1999 was thwarted by Turkish authorities Also foiled was a planned attack by the group in August 2000 on Incirlik air base which hosts U S aircraft patrolling a “no fly zone” over northern Iraq The group attacked an Istanbul police station killing one police officer in January 2001 The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran PMOI The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran PMOI the dominant organization within a broader National Council of Resistance NCR has leftwing roots but it is not composed of an ethnic minority It was formed in the 1960's as an opponent of the Shah’s authoritarian and pro-Western rule and allied with the clerics who overthrew the Shah In 1981 the PMOI turned against the Islamic revolutionary regime of Ayatollah Khomeini when Iran’s clerics excluded the PMOI and other groups from major roles in the new government but the PMOI was defeated and its leaders fled Iran The group claims that it has abandoned its leftwing past and that it is committed to free markets and democracy However the State Department noted in a 1994 congressionally-mandated report that there is no record of an internal debate over the change in ideology and there is reason to doubt the organization’s sincerity The group publicly supports the Arab-Israeli peace process and the rights of Iran’s minorities The State Department’s longstanding mistrust of the group is based not only on the group’s leftist past but on its killing of several U S military officers and civilians during the struggle against the Shah its support for the takeover of the U S Embassy in Tehran in 1979 its authoritarian internal structure and its use of Iraq as base for its several thousand member military wing The State Department named the PMOI an FTO in October 1997 on the grounds that it kills civilians in the course of its antiregime operations inside Iran In one of its most high-profile attacks the group claimed responsibility for the April 10 1999 assassination in Tehran of a senior Iranian military officer However the group does not appear to purposely target civilians In the October 1999 revision of the FTO list the NCR was named as an alias of the PMOI meaning that FTO-related sanctions now apply to the NCR as well The NCR’s offices in the United States have not been closed by U S law enforcement authorities but seven of its members were arrested in California in March 2001 for soliciting donations for the group a violation of FTO sanctions regulations Other supporters of the group often operate under the names of local Iranian expatriate organizations Some Members of Congress have questioned the State Department’s designation of the group as an FTO and stated that the group merits U S support as an alternative to the current regime in Tehran The PMOI is led by Masud and Maryam Rajavi Masud the PMOI Secretary General leads the PMOI’s military forces based in Iraq His wife Maryam who is now with him in Iraq after being asked to leave France in 1997 is the organization’s choice to become interim president of Iran if it were to take power CRS-25 Middle Eastern Terrorism List Countries Signs of success in the long-running U S campaign to reduce state sponsorship of international terrorism continue to mount In the case of several of the five Middle Eastern countries on the terrorism list — Iraq Iran Syria Sudan and Libya31 — U S and international pressure coupled with internal developments in some of these states appears to have reduced their support for international terrorism However many experts believe that a decision whether or not to remove a country from the terrorism list is based on factors in addition to terrorism support alone including congressional sentiment and public perception of the country in question Of the Middle Eastern countries on the list Sudan appears to be the closest to achieving removal the State Department openly acknowledges working with Sudan to help it meet the remaining requirements for removing it from the list Under Section 6 j of the Export Administration Act removal from the list requires 45 day advance notification to the House International Relations Committee the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate and House Banking Committees that the country has ceased support for international terrorism and pledges to continue doing so Also under that provision a major change of government in the listed country can serve as grounds for immediate removal from the list Iran32 Patterns 2000 as has been the case for the past six years again characterizes Iran as “the most active” state sponsor of international terrorism However the report as did Patterns 1999 attributes Iran’s terrorism support to specific institutions – the Revolutionary Guard and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security – rather rather than the Iranian government as a whole This characterization suggests that the State Department believes President Mohammad Khatemi and his allies genuinely wish to overcome Iran’s reputation as a “terrorist state” in order to further ease Iran’s isolation Suggesting that Khatemi is attempting maintain a position within a leadership foreign policy consensus that includes extremists Patterns 2000 cites statements by him as well as by hardline leaders calling for the destruction of Israel In another apparent signal to Iran Patterns 2000 for the third year in a row cites PMOI attacks on Iranian officials as justification for Iran’s claim that it is a victim of terrorism Although no major international terrorist attacks have been linked to Iran since Khatemi took office in August 1997 the United States has not publicly noted any diminution of Iranian material support for terrorist groups opposed to the ArabIsraeli peace process such as those discussed earlier in this paper Patterns 2000 31 Along with Cuba and North Korea these countries have been designated by the Secretary of State under Section 6 j of the Export Administration Act of 1979 50 U S C App 2405 j as having repeatedly provided state support for international terrorism 32 For further information see CRS Issue Brief IB93033 Iran Current Developments and U S Policy Updated regularly by Kenneth Katzman CRS-26 notes that Iran has encouraged Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist groups to escalate attacks on Israel in the context of the Palestinian uprising Iran also has been accused by regional governments of sponsoring assassinations of anti-Shiite Muslim clerics in Tajikistan and Pakistan and of supporting Shiite Muslim Islamic opposition movements in the Persian Gulf states and Iraq On the other hand U S officials acknowledge that Iran has improved relations with its Gulf neighbors dramatically in recent years and that its support for Gulf opposition movements has diminished sharply Iran also has largely ceased attacks on dissidents abroad that were so prominent among Khatami’s predecessors In handing down indictments of 14 people in June 2001 the Department of Justice stated its belief that Iran was involved in the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia which killed 19 U S airmen No Iranians were among those indicted but the indictments detail the role of Iranian security personnel in inspiring and supervising the plot which was carried out by members of Saudi Hizballah Eleven of the 14 are in custody in Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia says they will be tried there and not extradited to the United States 33 Many experts believe that the Saudi and U S governments have sought to avoid firmly pressing the Khobar case against Iran – legally or diplomatically – in order not to undermine Khatemi who was elected after the bombing or reduce the chance to improved relations with Iran Syria34 Patterns 2000 is more critical of Syria than was Patterns 1999 which came close to promising that Syria will be removed from the terrorism list if it signed a peace agreement with Israel This could signal that U S hopes have receded that President Bashar al-Assad would be more flexible on foreign policy than his father the late Hafez al- Assad who Bashar succeeded in June 2000 upon his death Far from praising Syria for restraining terrorist groups as was the case in some past Patterns report Patterns 2000 says that Syria allowed Hamas to open a new office in Damascus in March 2000 The report adds that Syria did not act to stop Hizballah or Palestinian terrorist groups operating in Syria or areas under Syrian control or influence from launching ant-Israel attacks Syria continued to allow Iran to resupply Hizballah through the Damascus airport and has allowed visiting Iranian officials to meet with anti-peace process terrorist organizations based in Syria It also publicly opposed suggestions that Hizballah be disarmed by U N peacekeepers after the militia seized positions in southern Lebanon vacated by Israel during its May 2000 withdrawal Patterns 2000 does state that Syria is generally upholding its pledge to Turkey not to support the PKK Some believe that Syria’s position on the PKK is the result of Syria’s fear of Turkey’s potential threat to use armed force against Syria and not a unilateral Syrian desire to sever relations with the PKK An alternate interpretation 33 MacFarquhar Neil Saudis Say They Not U S Will Try 11 in ‘96 Bombing New York Times July 2 2001 34 For further information see CRS Issue Brief IB92075 Syria U S Relations and Bilateral Issues Updated regularly by Alfred Prados CRS-27 is that Syria wants to sustain the recent improvement in its bilateral relationship with Turkey Also Patterns 2000 states that Syria appears to have maintained its longstanding ban on attacks launched from Syrian territory or against Western targets Despite its position on the terrorism list the United States maintains relatively normal relations with Syria The two countries exchange ambassadors and most forms of U S trade with and U S investment in Syria are permitted Exports of items that can have military applications are subject to strict licensing requirements Libya35 The Pan Am 103 bombing issue has been at the center of U S policy toward Libya for more than a decade and will likely prevent any major rapprochement as long as Muammar Qadhafi remains in power The Pan Am attack on December 21 1988 killed 259 people aboard plus 11 on the ground and the families of the victims are vocal advocates of a hardline U S stance on Libya Three U N Security Council resolutions — 731 January 21 1992 748 March 31 1992 and 883 November 11 1993 — called on Libya to turn over the two Libyan intelligence agents Abd alBasit Ali al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah suspected in the bombing and to help resolve the related case of the 1989 bombing of French airline UTA’s Flight 772 The U N resolutions prohibited air travel to or from Libya and all arms transfers to that country Resolution 748 and froze Libyan assets and prohibited the sale to Libya of petroleum-related equipment Resolution 883 In accordance with U N Security Council Resolution 1192 August 27 1998 the sanctions were suspended but not terminated immediately upon the April 5 1999 handover of the two to the Netherlands There their trial under Scottish law began on May 3 2000 and ended on January 31 2001 with the conviction of al-Megrahi and the acquittal of Fhimah The handover of the Pan Am suspects along with Libya’s growing distance from radical Palestinian groups reportedly prompted the Clinton Administration to review whether to remove Libya from the terrorism list 36 In 1998 prior to the handover Libya had expelled Abu Nidal it was reducing its contacts with other radical Palestinian organizations and it expressed support for Yasir Arafat In an effort to reward Libya’s positive steps in 1999 a U S official met with a Libyan diplomat for the first time since 1981 and the U S trade ban was modified to permit exports of food and medicine In March 2000 a group of U S security officials visited Libya briefly to assess whether or not to lift the U S restriction on the use of U S passports for travel to Libya No decision was announced The January 31 2001 conviction of al-Megrahi brought some closure to the Pan Am case but also reinforced the perception among the Pan Am victims’ families and others that Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi knew about if not orchestrated the bombing Immediately upon the conviction President Bush stated that the United States would maintains unilateral sanctions on Libya and opposes permanently lifting U N sanctions until Libya 1 accepts responsibility for the act 2 compensates the 35 For further information on Libya and its involvement in terrorism see CRS Issue Brief IB93109 Libya by Clyde Mark updated regularly 36 Slavin Barbara Libya May Be Taken Off Terrorist List USA Today July 8 1999 CRS-28 families of the victims 3 renounces support for terrorism and 4 discloses all it knows about the plot Since the conviction no U S official has suggested that Libya would receive consideration for removal from the terrorism list in the near future Patterns 2000 was more critical of Libya than was Patterns 1999 stating that it is unclear whether or not Libya’s distancing itself from its “terrorist past” signifies a true change in policy Libya has tried to appear cooperative in resolving other past acts of terrorism In March 1999 a French court convicted six Libyans in absentia for the 1989 bombing of a French airliner UTA Flight 772 over Niger One of them is Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi’s brother-in-law intelligence agent Muhammad Sanusi Although it never acknowledged responsibility or turned over the indicted suspects in July 1999 Libya compensated the families of the 171 victims of the bombing who included seven U S citizens In July 1999 Britain restored diplomatic relations with Libya after it agreed to cooperate with the investigation of the 1984 fatal shooting of a British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside Libya’s embassy in London It is alleged that a Libyan diplomat shot her while firing on Libyan dissidents demonstrating outside the embassy In what some construe as part of the effort to improve its international image Libya also has tried to mediate an end to conflicts between Eritrea and Ethiopia and within Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo However some believe Libya is trying to extend its influence in Africa rather than broker peace and some in Congress and the Administration assert that Libya continues to arm rebel groups in Africa such as the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone 37 Sudan38 Sudan appears closest of any of the Near Eastern countries on the terrorism list to being removed despite congressional and outside criticism over its prosecution of the war against Christian and other rebels in its south The State Department says it is engaged in discussions with Sudan with the objective of getting Sudan “completely out of the terrorism business and off the terrorism list ”39 Since shortly after being placed on the terrorism list Sudan has signaled a willingness to assuage international concerns about its support for terrorism In August 1994 Sudan turned over the terrorist Carlos Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez to France In December 1999 Sudan’s President Umar Hassan al-Bashir a military leader politically sidelined Sudan’s leading Islamist figure Hassan al-Turabi In February 2001 Turabi was arrested and has remained under house arrest since May 2001 Turabi was the primary proponent of Sudan’s ties to region-wide Islamic movements including Al Qaida the Abu Nidal Organization Hamas PIJ Egypt’s Islamic Group and Al Jihad Hizballah and 37 Libya Must Fulfill All Requirements to Have Sanctions Lifted USIS Washington File July 22 1999 38 For further information see CRS Issue Brief IB98043 Sudan Humanitarian Crisis Peace Talks Terrorism and U S Policy Updated regularly by Theodros S Dagne 39 Patterns 2000 p 31 CRS-29 Islamist rebel movements in East Africa According to Patterns 2000 by the end of 2000 Sudan had signed all 12 international conventions on combating terrorism The key outstanding terrorism issue is Sudan’s compliance with three Security Council resolutions adopted in 1996 1044 of January 31 1054 of April 26 and 1070 of August 16 The resolutions demanded that Sudan extradite the three Islamic Group suspects in the June 1995 assassination attempt against President Mubarak in Ethiopia restricted the number of Sudanese diplomats abroad and authorized a suspension of international flights by Sudanese aircraft although the last measure was never put into effect According to the Washington Post of August 21 2001 the Bush Administration has concluded that Sudan has ended its support for the terrorists involved in the bomb plot Some Administration officials want the United States to agree to a lifting of the U N sanctions if and when Sudan seeks such a move possibly as early as late September 2001 Others believe that the U N sanctions should remain as a signal in part of U S displeasure with Sudan’s overall poor human rights record and its war against southern Sudanese rebels The United States has tried to promote further progress on terrorism by slowly increasing engagement with Sudan The United States closed its embassy in Khartoum in February 1996 although diplomatic relations were not broken U S diplomats posted to Sudan have since worked out of the U S Embassy in Kenya but have made consular visits to the embassy in Khartoum Several times since mid-2000 U S counterterrorism experts have visited Sudan to discuss U S terrorism concerns and monitor Sudan’s behavior on the issue There is lingering resentment among some Sudanese against the United States because of the August 20 1998 cruise missile strike on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum conducted in conjunction with the strike on bin Ladin’s bases in Afghanistan The United States destroyed the plant on the grounds that it was allegedly contributing to chemical weapons manufacture for bin Ladin Although the Clinton Administration asserted that the al-Shifa strike was justified several outside critics maintained that the plant was a genuine pharmaceutical factory with no connection to bin Ladin or to the production of chemical weapons The plant owner’s $24 million in U S -based assets were unfrozen by the Administration in 1999 a move widely interpreted as a tacit U S admission that the strike was in error Iraq40 U S -Iraq differences over Iraq’s regional ambitions and its record of compliance with post-Gulf war ceasefire requirements will probably keep Iraq on the terrorism list as long as Saddam Husayn remains in power Observers are virtually unanimous in assessing Iraq’s record of compliance with its postwar obligations as poor and its human rights record as abysmal However international pressure on Iraq on these broader issues appears to have constrained Iraq’s ability to use terrorism Patterns 2000 as have the past few Patterns reports notes that Iraq continues to plan and sponsor international terrorism although Iraq’s activities are directed mostly against 40 For further information see CRS Issue Brief IB92117 Iraqi Compliance With Ceasefire Agreements Updated regularly by Kenneth Katzman CRS-30 anti-regime opposition symbols of Iraq’s past defeats or bodies that represent or implement international sanctions against Iraq In October 1998 Iraqi agents allegedly planned to attack the Prague-based Radio Free Iraq service of Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty although no attack occurred Iraq organized a failed assassination plot against former President Bush during his April 1993 visit to Kuwait which triggered a U S retaliatory missile strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters Since 1991 it has sporadically attacked international relief workers in Kurdishcontrolled northern Iraq Iraq which historically has had close ties to Yasir Arafat has given some support to anti-peace process Palestinian groups and hosts the Abu Nidal Organization Abu Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Front and other minor groups As a lever in its relations with Iran Iraq continues to host and provide some older surplus weaponry to the PMOI’s army the National Liberation Army NLA which has bases near the border with Iran However Iraq apparently has reduced support for the group as Iraq’s relations with Tehran have improved over the past two years Table 2 Blocked Assets of Middle East Terrorism List States As of End 2000 Country IRAN added to terrorism list January 19 1984 IRAQ on list at inception December 29 1979 Removed March 1982 restored to list September 13 1990 SYRIA on list since inception SUDAN added August 12 1993 LIBYA on list since inception Assets in U S $23 2 million consisting of blocked diplomatic property and related accounts A reported additional $400 million in assets remain in a Defense Dept account pending resolution of U S -Iran military sales cases 41 $2 356 billion primarily blocked bank deposits Includes $596 million blocked in U S banks’ foreign branches and $173 million in Iraqi assets loaned to a U N escrow account No blocked assets $33 3 million in blocked bank deposits $1 073 billion primarily blocked bank deposits Principal Source 2000 Annual Report to Congress on Assets in the United States Belonging to Terrorist Countries or International Terrorist Organizations Office of Foreign Assets Control Department of the Treasury January 2001 41 Pincus Walter Bill Would Use Frozen Assets to Compensate Terrorism Victims Washington Post July 30 2000 CRS-31 Countering Near Eastern Terrorism There is no universally agreed strategy for countering the terrorism threats discussed above partly because the challenge is so complex and the potential antiterrorism methods so diverse However a central tenet of U S policy is not to capitulate to the demands of terrorists Observers also tend to agree that the success of almost any strategy depends on bilateral multilateral or international cooperation with U S efforts Not all options focus on pressuring states or groups some believe that engagement with state sponsors and U S efforts to address terrorists’ grievances are more effective over the long term The United States has claimed some successes for its policy of pressuring state sponsors but there are signs that the United States is now incorporating a greater degree of engagement into its policy framework At the same time the United States has not dropped the longstanding stated U S policy of refusing to make concessions to terrorists or of pursuing terrorism cases politically or legally as long as is needed to obtain a resolution An exhaustive discussion of U S efforts to counter terrorism emanating from the region is beyond the scope of this paper but the following sections highlight key themes in U S efforts to reduce this threat 42 Military Force The United States has used military force against terrorism in selected cases U S allies in Europe have sometimes been the victims of Near Eastern terrorism but they generally view military retaliation as a last resort believing that it could inspire a cycle of attack and reaction that might be difficult to control On some occasions however allies have provided logistic and diplomatic support for unilateral U S retaliatory attacks U S military actions against terrorists have almost always received strong congressional support Major U S attacks have been conducted in retaliation for terrorist acts sponsored by Libya and Iraq as well as those allegedly sponsored by the bin Ladin network On April 15 1986 the United States sent about 100 U S aircraft to bomb military installations in Libya The attack was in retaliation for the April 2 1986 bombing of a Berlin nightclub in which 2 U S military personnel were killed and in which Libya was implicated On June 26 1993 the United States fired cruise missiles at the headquarters in Baghdad of the Iraqi Intelligence Service which allegedly sponsored a failed assassination plot against former President George Bush during his April 14-16 1993 visit to Kuwait Other U S retaliation against Iraq since 1991 has been triggered by Iraqi violations of ceasefire terms not related to terrorism The August 20 1998 cruise missile strikes against the bin Ladin network in Afghanistan represented a U S strike against a group not a state sponsor The related strike on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan could have been intended as a signal to Sudan to sever any remaining ties to bin Ladin 42 An extended discussion of these issues is provided by CRS Issue Brief IB95112 Terrorism the Future and U S Foreign Policy Updated regularly by Raphael Perl CRS-32 The effectiveness of U S military action against terrorist groups or state sponsors is difficult to judge Libya did not immediately try to retaliate after the 1986 U S strike but many believe that it did eventually strike back by orchestrating the Pan Am 103 bombing Since the 1993 U S strike Iraq has avoided terrorist attacks against high profile U S targets but it has continued to challenge the United States on numerous issues related to its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait The 1998 airstrikes against bin Ladin did not prompt the Taliban leadership to extradite or expel him from Afghanistan nor did the strikes deter bin Ladin’s network from engaging in further terrorist activities Unilateral Economic Sanctions The United States has been willing to apply economic sanctions unilaterally Under a number of different laws 43 the placement of a country on the terrorism list triggers a wide range of U S economic sanctions including a ban on direct U S foreign aid including Export-Import Bank guarantees a ban on sales of items on the U S Munitions Control List a requirement that the United States vote against lending to that country by international institutions strict licensing requirements for sales to that country which generally prohibit exports of items that can have military applications such as advanced sensing computation or transportation equipment A U S trade ban has been imposed on every Middle Eastern terrorism list state except Syria under separate Executive orders Placement on the terrorism list does not automatically trigger a total ban on U S trade with or investment by the United States In addition foreign aid appropriations bills since the late 1980s have barred direct and indirect assistance to terrorism list and other selected countries and mandated cuts in U S contributions to international programs that work in those countries As shown in Table 2 above the United States also tries to maintain some leverage over terrorism list states and groups by blocking some of their assets in the United States Some sanctions are aimed at countries that help or arm terrorism list countries Sections 325 and 326 of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act P L 104-132 amended the Foreign Assistance Act by requiring the President to withhold U S foreign assistance to any government that provides assistance or lethal military aid to any terrorism list country In April 1999 three Russian entities were sanctioned 43 The list of sanctions are under the following authorities Section 6 j of the Export Administration Act as amended P L 96-72 50 U S C app 2405 j Section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act as amended P L 90-629 22 U S C 2780 and Section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended P L 87-195 22 U S C 2371 and Section 1621 of the International Financial Institutions Act 22 U S C 262c CRS-33 under this provision for providing anti-tank weaponry to Syria sanctions on the Russian government were waived The 1996 Anti-Terrorism act also gave the Administration another option besides placing a country on the terrorism list Section 303 of that Act created a new list of states that are deemed “not cooperating with U S anti-terrorism efforts ” and provided that states on that list be barred from sales of U S Munitions List items Under that provision and every year since 1997 Afghanistan – along with the seven terrorism list countries – has been designated as not cooperating No U S allies have been designated as “not cooperating ” although the provision was enacted following an April 1995 incident in which Saudi Arabia did not attempt to detain Hizballah terrorist Imad Mughniyah when a plane on which he was believed to be a passenger was scheduled to land in Saudi Arabia 44 Possibly in an attempt to avoid similar incidents on June 21 1995 President Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive 39 PDD-39 enabling U S law enforcement authorities to capture suspected terrorists by force from foreign countries that refuse to cooperate in their extradition 45 The Clinton Administration rejected several outside recommendations – most recently those issued in June 2000 by the congressionally-mandated National Commission on Terrorism – to place Afghanistan on the terrorism list The Clinton Administration said that placing Afghanistan on the list would imply that the United States recognizes the Taliban movement as the legitimate government of Afghanistan However President Clinton on July 4 1999 issued Executive order 13129 imposing sanctions on the Taliban that are similar to those imposed on terrorism list countries and on foreign terrorist organizations The order imposed a ban on U S trade with areas of Afghanistan under Taliban control froze Taliban assets in the United States and prohibited contributions to Taliban by U S persons The President justified the move by citing the Taliban’s continued harboring of bin Ladin Also in its June 2000 report the National Commission on Terrorism recommended naming Greece and Pakistan as not fully cooperating with U S antiterrorism efforts The Clinton Administration rejected those recommendations as well In Patterns 2000 the State Department implied that Pakistan and Lebanon were potential candidates for the terrorism list or possibly the “not cooperating” list for supporting or tolerating operations by terrorist groups 46 On the other hand Patterns 2000 did credit both Pakistan and Lebanon with anti-terrorism cooperation in selected cases Most experts believe the United States does not want to alienate those countries by placing them on the terrorism list although designating them as “not cooperating” might have less of an effect on U S relations with them 47 44 Hizballah Denies Mughniyah on Board Plane FBIS-NES-95-079 Apr 25 1995 p 44 45 Policy on Terror Suspects Overseas Washington Post February 5 1997 46 Patterns 2000 p 32 47 Pakistan is widely credited with helping the United States capture Ramzi Ahmad Yusuf February 1995 CIA shooter Mir Aimal Kansi June 1997 and some suspects in the Kenya Tanzania embassy bombings CRS-34 Analysts doubt that unilateral U S economic sanctions by themselves can force major changes in the behavior of state sponsors of terrorism Major U S allies did not join the U S trade ban imposed on Iran in May 1995 and the move did not in itself measurably alter Iran’s support for terrorist groups On the other hand virtually all Middle Eastern terrorism list states have publicly protested their inclusion on the list and other U S sanctions suggesting that these sanctions are having an effect politically and or economically U S officials assert that U S sanctions even if unilateral have made some terrorism state sponsors “think twice” about promoting terrorism To demonstrate that improvements in behavior can be rewarded in April 1999 the Clinton Administration announced that it would permit on a case-by-case basis commercial sales of U S food and medical products to Libya Sudan and Iran The move relaxed the bans on U S trade with the three countries As noted previously all three have recently shown some signs of wanting to improve their international images Multilateral Sanctions In concert with U S unilateral actions the United States has sought to apply multilateral sanctions against Middle Eastern terrorism As noted above the United States led efforts to impose international sanctions on Libya and Sudan for their support of terrorism and both those states have sought to improve their international standings since international sanctions were imposed The United States and Russia jointly worked successfully to persuade the United Nations Security Council to adopt sanctions on the Taliban because of its refusal to extradite bin Ladin U N Security Council Resolution 1267 adopted October 15 1999 banned flights outside Afghanistan by its national airline Ariana and directed U N member states to freeze Taliban assets The United States and Russia teamed up again to push another resolution U N Security Council Resolution 1333 adopted December 19 2000 that among other measures imposed an international arms embargo on the Taliban only not on opposition factions 48 These measures are beginning to be implemented and have not to date caused the Taliban to waiver in its refusal to hand over bin Ladin Pakistan has said it will comply with the resolutions possibly resulting in Pakistan’s reducing its patronage of the Taliban movement Counterterrorism Cooperation Successive administrations have identified counterterrorism cooperation with friendly countries as a key element of U S policy In one important regional example the United States has sought to contain Hizballah by providing military and law enforcement assistance to the government of Lebanon In the past few years the United States has sold Lebanon non-lethal defense articles such as armored personnel carriers In 1994 on a one-time basis the United States provided non-lethal aid including excess trucks and equipment to Palestinian Authority security forces in an effort to strengthen them against Hamas and PIJ although some in Israel now fear 48 Miller Judith Russians Join U S To Seek New Sanctions on Taliban New York Times August 4 2000 CRS-35 that the PA or PLO factions might use some of this equipment against Israel Several Middle Eastern countries including Egypt Israel Jordan Kuwait Saudi Arabia Tunisia and Turkey receive anti-terrorism assistance through the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program run by the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security in which the United States provides training in airport security explosives detection and crisis management In cooperating against the bin Ladin network the United States has expanded and formalized a counterterrorism dialogue with Russia and begun bilateral dialogues on the issue with the Central Asian states Every year since 1999 the State Department has hosted a multilateral conference of senior counterterrorism officials from the Middle East Central Asia and Asia focusing on combating the terrorism threat from Afghanistan These conferences and meetings have often resulted in agreements to exchange information to conduct joint efforts to counter terrorist fundraising and to develop improved export controls on explosives and conventions against nuclear terrorism 49 The United States has provided some detection equipment to the Central Asian states to help them prevent the smuggling of nuclear and other material to terrorist groups such as the bin Ladin network or terrorism list countries The measure yielded some results in April 2000 when Uzbek border authorities used this equipment to detect and seize ten containers with radioactive material bound for Pakistan 50 During a trip to the region a few weeks after this incident then Secretary of State Albright pledged $3 million each to Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to help their border police combat drug smuggling and terrorism In June 2001 the U S National Academy of Sciences began a program of cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences to combat the use of high technology for terrorism The United States has worked with the European Union EU to exert influence on Iran to end its sponsorship of terrorism In exchange for relaxing enforcement of U S sanctions under the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act P L 104-172 which would have sanctioned EU firms that invest in Iran’s energy industry in mid 1998 the United States extracted a pledge from the EU to increase cooperation with the United States against Iranian terrorism In May 1998 the EU countries agreed on a “code of conduct” to curb arms sales to states such as Iran that might use the arms to support terrorism However the code is not legally binding on the EU member governments 51 In January 2000 the United States signed a new International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Financing which creates an international legal framework to investigate those involved in terrorist financing Selective Engagement As noted in the discussions of terrorism list countries the Administration has shown increasing willingness to engage state sponsors once these countries have demonstrated some willingness to curb support for terrorism U S officials justify 49 Patterns 1998 p V 50 Bryen Stephen “The New Islamic Bomb ” Washington Times April 10 2000 51 “Plan Still Lets Rogue States Buy Arms ” Associated Press May 26 1998 CRS-36 engagement with the argument that doing so creates incentives for terrorism list countries to continue to reduce their support for international terrorism On the other hand critics believe that terrorism list countries are likely to view a U S policy of engagement as a sign that supporting terrorism will not adversely affect relations with the United States Of the Middle Eastern terrorism list countries the United States engages in bilateral dialogue with all except Iran and Iraq The United States has called for a dialogue with Iran but Iran has thus far refused on the grounds that the United States has not dismantled what Iran calls “hostile” policies toward that country – a formulation widely interpreted to refer to U S sanctions Iraq has asked for direct talks with the United States but the United States has rejected the suggestion on the grounds that Iraq is too far from compliance with Gulf war-related requirements to make official talks useful Legal Action Legal action against terrorist groups and state sponsors is becoming an increasingly large component of U S counterterrorism strategy In the case of the bombing of Pan Am 103 the Bush Administration chose international legal action – a trial of the two Libyan suspects – over military retaliation A similar choice has apparently been made in the Khobar Towers bombing case although that legal effort consists of U S indictments of suspects and not a U N -centered legal effort Congress has attempted to give victims of international terrorism a legal option against state sponsors The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 Section 221 created an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity for Certain Cases 28 U S C Section 1605 allowing victims of terrorism to sue terrorism list countries for acts of terrorism by them or groups they support Since this provision was enacted a number of cases have been brought in U S courts and several multimillion dollar awards have been made to former hostages and the families of victims of groups proven in court to have been sponsored by Iran In 2000 the Clinton Administration accepted compromise legislation to use general revenues to pay compensatory damage awards to these successful claimants with the stipulation that the President try to recoup expended funds from Iran as part of an overall reconciliation in relations and settlement of assets disputes The provision called the “Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act ” was incorporated into the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 P L 106-386 The Clinton Administration had opposed directly tapping frozen Iranian assets in the United States – such as selling Iran’s former embassy in Washington – on the grounds that doing so could violate diplomatic sovereignty or provoke attacks on U S property or citizens abroad The Domestic Front The February 1993 World Trade Center bombing exposed the vulnerability of the United States homeland to Middle Eastern-inspired terrorism as did no other previous event The bombing sparked stepped up law enforcement investigation into the activities of Islamic networks in the United States and alleged fundraising in the CRS-37 United States for Middle East terrorism In January 1995 President Clinton targeted terrorism fundraising in his Executive order 12947 see above Congress included many of the measures in that Executive order in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 The additional law enforcement powers and efforts in recent years might have accounted for the foiling of the alleged plot by bin Ladin supporters to detonate a bomb at Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium Some observers allege that Middle Eastern groups have extensive fundraising and political networks in the United States working from seemingly innocent religious and research institutions and investment companies 52 PIJ leader Shallah before being tapped to lead PIJ taught at the University of South Florida in the early 1990s and ran an affiliated Islamic studies institute called the World and Islam Studies Enterprise WISE In May 2000 the parents of an Israeli-American teenager killed in a 1996 Hamas attack in Israel filed suit against several Islamic charity groups in the United States alleging that they raised money for Hamas 53 Groups named in the suit included the Quranic Literary Institute the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development the Islamic Association for Palestine and the United Association for Studies and Research Representatives of these groups have consistently denied any involvement with fundraising for terrorism or involvement in Hamas PIJ activities 54 Others have challenged this view saying that most American Muslims who support such groups oppose the use of violence and donate money to organizations that they believe use the funds solely for humanitarian purposes Some U S domestic counterterrorism efforts particularly those dealing with immigration and investigative powers have drawn substantial criticism from U S civil liberties groups which have expressed concern about excessive intrusions by law enforcement authorities These groups also have said that the prohibition on donations to groups allegedly involved in terrorism infringes free speech Some Arab-American and American Muslim organizations have complained that U S residents and citizens of Arab descent are being unfairly branded as suspected terrorists and point to erroneous initial accusations by some terrorism experts that Islamic extremists perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 52 Emerson Steven Islamic Terror From Midwest to Mideast Wall Street Journal August 28 1995 53 Miller Judith Suit Accuses Islamic Charities of Fund-Raising for Terrorism New York Times May 13 2000 54 Ibid