WHO COULD DO SUCH A THING?
SHIRLEY, EDWARD G.
WHO COULD DO SUCH A THING? A Suspect List in the Embassy Bombings By Edward G. Shirley Unless the United States has communication intercepts revealing who bombed the American embassies in Nairobi...
...newspapers, which are meticulously followed in the Islamic Republic...
...Iranian representatives in America were flooded with inquiries about tourist travel to the Islamic Republic...
...Some terrorists, certain of their actions and free of any need to seduce new recruits, don't have to brag about their exploits...
...Though in general the American reticence to use force abroad speaks well of our national character, it ill equips us to deal with Middle East terrorism...
...A staunch and generous backer of the anti-Soviet Mujahedin, bin Laden has reportedly maintained his spiritual and financial links with the "Afghanis," the non-Afghan Muslims who went to Afghanistan to wage a jihad against the Soviet Union...
...Such disinformation would protect Iran while tarring the Saudi and his Iran-hating Afghan Taliban protectors...
...This is even truer for terrorist-supporting states, which have physically much to lose by failing to hide their fingerprints and emotionally little to gain...
...Iranian prime minister Mehdi Bazargan met with President Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in Algiers in November 1979...
...They must possess the right identification and travel papers...
...Would a terrorist-supporting state want to put itself in harm's way by helping a man who can't shut up about a jihad against the United States...
...This said, however, it is more likely that Sudan, if involved, played a supporting role, allowing men who more passionately hate and fear the United States to take the lead...
...Nevertheless, the embarrassments continued...
...Passionate hatred is a hallmark of Iran's Islamic Republic—and of bin Laden, who probably reviles the United States even more virulently than Iran's hard core...
...Only Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which is often dismissive of U.S...
...The hard core resisted...
...Though the Iranians may not have been responsible for that attack, America's inability to find its perpetrators exposed our soft underbelly...
...Then came the coup de grâce : Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and President Clinton gave conciliatory speeches directed at Iran's mullahs...
...Connecting the terrorists' modus operandi to a motivating ideology will be key in pinpointing those responsible...
...Americans shouldn't forget that after Ronald Reagan attacked Tripoli and George Bush unleashed Desert Storm, neither Qaddafi nor Hussein sent death-wish-driven terrorists against the United States...
...A Libyan or an Iraqi role in these attacks cannot be discounted, but the preferences and capabilities of both run more in the direction of hit teams and altitude-detonated bombs in planes...
...The Iranians, of course, don't need to contract out attacks to a Saudi radical...
...Somewhere along the line, a terrorist-supporting state—like Iran, Iraq, or Sudan—in all likelihood would have to lend decisive assistance to any large-scale terrorist operation by bin Laden...
...The clerical regime in Tehran should be at the top of our list—even above Osaman bin Laden, the Saudi Islamic militant who calls for a holy war against the Edward G. Shirley is the pseudonym of a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA's clandestine service...
...Much has been made of bin Laden's Afghan connections...
...While I personally hope that the Islamic Republic was not responsible for these bombings, the case against Iran makes sense...
...And once sparked, the jihadist temperament can easily look beyond national borders toward the United States and Israel, favorite bogeymen of the Muslim Middle East...
...It is worth remembering that hard-core Iranian revolutionaries seized the U.S...
...But conspiracies are Iran's lifeblood, and the clerical hard core— who deal with each other and the outside world in a highly Byzantine manner—see conspiracies everywhere...
...In an interview with CNN on January 7, 1998, President Khatami appealed for a limited "cultural dialogue" between the United States and Iran...
...With the Soviets vanquished, most of these "Afghanis" returned to their countries, often to continue the war against Westernizing Muslims...
...No question: Sudan was philosophically and probably logistically capable of undertaking the U.S...
...If many of these "Afghanis" descended on Kenya and Tanzania, local security services, backed up by the Americans and the Israelis, ought to have a good chance of fairly quickly discovering their guilt...
...Religious fanaticism has deep roots in Sudan, as General "Chinese" Gordon discovered in 1885 at Khartoum...
...But today's Sudanese Islamic state, though brutal, is neither particularly internationalist nor charismatic...
...If one is going to murder the emissaries of "the Great Satan," it behooves one to be professional about it...
...Perhaps...
...Determined to reinforce his country's religious identity and willing to accept help from any quarter, al-Turabi gives safe haven to Islamic terrorists and fraternizes with Iraq and clerical Iran...
...Khatami's minister of the interior, who had permitted one too many antiKhamenei demonstrations, was impeached...
...In the terrorist set, bin Laden is easily the biggest mouth...
...Worse, domestic troubles became a foreign-policy nightmare...
...officials lined up, hoping to get visas...
...The mayor of Tehran was harassed and convicted...
...servicemen in Saudi Arabia in June 1996, could have further encouraged Tehran...
...The ruling clerical and lay elites—the circles revolving around Iran's revolutionary leader, Ali Khamenei, and former president Hashemi-Rafsanjani—quite correctly feel that the nation is no longer theirs...
...And the response of the United States to Khatami's appeal sent exactly the wrong message...
...Very few terrorists really want to get caught or killed...
...It's not unreasonable to conjecture that after the considerable excitement provoked in Iran and the United States by the January 7 CNN interview, the hard core got seriously worried...
...They are uncertain of their own bases of power...
...However, the more disparate the elements in a terrorist team, the more likely are mistakes and leaks...
...they too could have been deployed, especially from Sudan, the entrepôt for nefarious types...
...The "friendly" signals President Khatami's CNN interview elicited from Americans horrified conservative Tehran...
...it's tactical...
...If Khamenei ordered the bombings, then a devastating U.S...
...Journalists were hauled into court...
...Even those who seek to immolate themselves for God's greater glory and a passport to paradise often fear retribution against kith and kin enough to inhibit them from claiming their handiwork...
...It's not unreasonable to assume that the comings and goings of bin Laden, his closest associates, and many in his operation's rank and file are watched by the Middle East's myriad security and police services...
...Street protesters and intellectuals were pummeled and jailed...
...Though the image of a CIA-trained "Afghani" killer-elite by now is well established, the truth is that most "Afghanis," like the Afghan Mujahedin themselves, weren't particularly accomplished in the black arts...
...And Iranians have a superb sixth sense for weakness...
...It's quite plausible that in the spring of 1998, when Tehran University started to boil, Khamenei and Rafsanjani gave the green light to the Ministry of Intelligence, over which Khatami has no control, to move forward with planning for terrorist attacks...
...Killing Israelis is one thing, killing Americans quite another...
...It appears that the terrorists who drove the bombladen trucks to the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were willing, if not determined, to die...
...As a friend who taught school in Iran noted once, Iranian students constantly challenge the teacher's authority...
...Does bin Laden, however, have the networks and operational wherewithal to launch sophisticated, clandestine attacks...
...naval and air power, if unleashed, is devastating...
...They have their own men and extensive networks in Africa and the Middle East, based primarily on Arab Shiite communities...
...Domestically, however, Khamenei's forces can do only so much...
...wrestlers visited Tehran, and the Western media let loose a barrage of features about "ping-pong diplomacy" that could lead to warmer relations...
...The Iranians, however, would love to blame the embassy attacks on bin Laden...
...At home, the Iranian hard core is under siege...
...Though the trial tarnished the mayor, the process clearly showed the regime's inability to prevent serious internal challenges from becoming demeaning public spectacles...
...To one looking at the world from Tehran, the answer to that question is an emphatic yes...
...Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank have been far better laboratories for teaching terrorist tactics than the Afghan wars since 1979...
...For the clerical hard core, these speeches were poison...
...Of the five most likely culprits in the embassy attacks—Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Iran, and bin Laden— only the last two unquestionably can deploy terrorist teams willing, or even eager, to blow themselves up...
...Even so, this jihad has unquestionably embittered and ideologically charged Sudanese life...
...But the "Afghanis" aren't subtle folks: At home or in Afghanistan, they stand out...
...Blowing up American embassies would demonstrate to moderate elements in the clerical elite the hard core's militant resolve...
...Student riots terrify them because the protesters and the security forces differ little in age, background, and quite possibly in their frustration with the lack of promise in their lives...
...Whoever is responsible for the attacks on our embassies needs to know that the United States will unleash a firestorm upon them...
...In a frightful warning to those trying to change the nature of the Islamic Republic, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened that the corps would "rip the tongues out" of those who challenged Khamenei's rule...
...Though bin Laden's organization and constant ranting obviously offer good cover, actually using his men for anti-American attacks is a risky proposition...
...Rumors were rampant in Tehran that the moderate elements were sending éminences grises to the United States to deal behind the hard core's back...
...congressmen, ex-hostages, and former senior U.S...
...Operational rules and differing local loyalties naturally engender an exclusionary mentality, even for those engaged in a common holy cause...
...They spoke of the hope born in President Khatami's election and the possibility of U.S.-Iranian reconciliation...
...Iran's ruling mullahs have the means, the mentality, and, most important, compelling domestic political reasons to kill American officials abroad...
...The May 1997 presidential election of Mohammad Khatami unleashed a torrent of discontent and hope among young Iranians, who have grown tired of clerical Iran's poverty and boring "Islamic" life...
...This didn't happen, of course...
...To kill on a large scale and remain anonymous, terrorists must operate in well-trained, dedicated teams...
...The Middle East's terrorist bazaar should not be viewed as a well-organized comintern of suicidal brothers...
...Stories about American tourists visiting Iran appeared in leading U.S...
...embassies at this time be helpful...
...The clergy has seen security forces and the army refuse to quash rioters...
...power, might conceivably employ bin Laden and be sloppily straightforward about it...
...American non-governmental organizations rushed to Iran, emphasizing reconciliation and cultural diplomacy...
...embassy in Tehran not because U.S.-Iranian relations had fallen apart but because they were improving...
...The stalled investigation of the Khobar Towers bombing, which killed 19 U.S...
...Libya and Iraq certainly have their devotees and agents around the world—Libya's leader Muammar Qaddafi has spent money freely in Africa to win friends and undermine the West—but neither Saddam Hussein nor Qaddafi has been particularly successful at harnessing Islam, pan-Arabism, or any other belief to his holy war against America, Israel, and the West...
...If "you don't hit them, they'll eat you alive...
...If Washington can't control its client and force it to release information about the loss of American lives, then the "Great Satan's" empire is exploitably weak...
...officials—it appeared that the Provisional Islamic Republic and "the Great Satan" were going to normalize their relations...
...There is very little doubt that Iran has long had contingency plans for terrorist strikes against U.S...
...He is the author of Know Thine Enemy, A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997...
...Increasingly obsessed with the American threat, the regime would undoubtedly want to strike the enemy...
...His holy-warrior language is frank, brutal, and uncompromising, shaded by none of the dissimulation and politesse of Persians...
...Though the Clinton administration, with its aversion to military force, engenders little awe, rogue states aren't fools...
...Women—who had voted for Khatami in overwhelming numbers in hopes that he would create a more female-friendly state—became the "beneficiaries" of new legislation prohibiting male doctors from treating female patients...
...In Tehran, Saudi Arabia is viewed as an American client-state...
...Secretary of State Albright and the president wouldn't have gone on TV to make their appeals if they had established productive lines of communication to Khatami...
...Would blowing up U.S...
...Of course, bin Laden has non-"Afghani" fundamentalist connections throughout the Middle East...
...And politics as violence is addictive, particularly when it has worked well...
...To the clerical mind, "the Great Satan" is the seducer of the Koran, who destroys the faithful through ingratiating smiles, friendly overtures, and whispers...
...The clerical triumph in Iran was, among other things, a victory of subterfuge and violence...
...Though it is too soon for investigators to zero in on a few possibilities, it isn't too early for observers to suggest why certain parties are more likely suspects than others...
...They must know how to conduct thorough but discreet surveillance—no easy task...
...The trial of Tehran's mayor on corruption charges, also televised, became a fiasco for the regime...
...Though Hassan al-Turabi, the "spiritual" leader of Sudan, has beguiled Western journalists and academics with his charm and fluent English and French, it isn't certain he commands a suicidally faithful following, either...
...In matters of training and documentation, governments have a big advantage over even the most dedicated wealthy individuals like bin Laden...
...The mayor, a former cleric who is perhaps the most serious political threat to the ruling order, railed against the regime's inequities and cruelty...
...Events since the spring would have reinforced their fears that the revolutionary status quo was in jeopardy...
...embassy attacks...
...But Sudan's holy war has so far been largely confined to the subjugation of the black-African, Christ-ian-animist southern part of the country...
...For Iran's revolutionary hard core, the preeminent issue isn't operational or philosophical...
...And it would powerfully remind Khatami who calls the shots...
...Khomeini's ardent faithful were horrified...
...Not long after, in a special television broadcast to the nation, Khatami reaffirmed his loyalty to the revolutionary leader, as the latter, seated above the president, looked on...
...Iraqis and Libyans—let alone Muslim East Africans— aren't known for their suicidal loyalty to these two men...
...And good false passports and identity papers, essential for clandestine operations, aren't easy to come by, even for multi-millionaire Saudi financiers...
...A Suspect List in the Embassy Bombings By Edward G. Shirley Unless the United States has communication intercepts revealing who bombed the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the search for the guilty will probably be an exhausting exercise involving meticulous police work, intelligence liaison, and luck...
...Though terrorism waged by independent fanatics—so-called transnational terrorism—has come into vogue since the end of the Cold War, state-sponsored terrorism remains a more probable culprit for large-scale, coordinated terrorist acts...
...Sudan and Iran might avail themselves of his ever eager services, but they would fear disclosure and would probably minimize their contact with his group...
...This led some among the hard core—who implacably loathe America and fear any rapprochement—to wonder whether Khatami, a revolutionary cleric, had betrayed his own kind...
...Speeches and violent demonstrations at Tehran University this spring, which explicitly attacked Khamenei's undemocratic rule and his campaign against Tehran's popular and progressive mayor, angered and scared the mullahs...
...installations abroad...
...The Iranians are quite capable, however, of making deals with their Muslim enemies if it serves a higher cause...
...reprisal will be critical for our self-defense and for the survival of those in Iran who desperately want closer U.S.-Iranian relations...
...the same is true, no doubt, for bin Laden...
...To the revolution's fire-breathers— and to many U.S...
Vol. 3 • August 1998 • No. 47
