Sunday, 6 May 2001 20:55 (ET)

Iran behind Saudi bombing
By RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Correspondent

The United States has "airtight evidence" that Iran was the chief culprit behind the June 1996 terrorist bombing of a U.S. military facility in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 airmen and injured another 250, a U.S. official told United Press International Sunday.

The FBI reached that conclusion in an early investigation but was forced to withdraw it because of political considerations, according to anti-terrorism expert Jerry Bremer.

One former CIA official also named Syria as playing the role of "enabler" in the bombing, and other former U.S. intelligence officials said that operatives of Saudi exile terrorist Osama bin Laden were also involved.

According to U.S. government officials with close knowledge of the case, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, the languishing probe into the bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in 1996 has been picking up momentum since last month, when FBI director Louis Freeh indicated he wanted more action on the case.

A State Dept. official was hopeful that the recent change in the administration would breathe new life into the investigation. "I think we're seeing a different emphasis with this administration when it comes to terrorism and Iran," he said. "There is a new resolve on the part of the Bush people to get to the bottom of this," agreed another U.S. official.

Yet another official added that during the Clinton administration there had been a "real attempt to repair our relations with Iran" via the so-called Albright initiative. Unfortunately, it also meant "walking softly" where acts of terrorism and Iran was concerned, he said.

"There was this desire to have Iran re-enter the world diplomatic community. Iran was doing some things, like stopping Iraqi ships trying to smuggle oil, and everyone felt an effort would be worth it," he said.

When two former CIA officials, Larry Johnson and Milt Bearden, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times late last year quoting a confession by bin Laden operative and former U.S. Army Sgt. Ali Mohamed about a link between the bin Laden organization and the mysterious Hezbollah head of security, Iman Mughniyah, the authors met with immediate criticism from the White House, according to former U.S. intelligence sources.

Mughniyah, who is believed to have carried out the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, was described by a former CIA official as "clearly an operative of Iran's."

"The (Clinton) White House clearly didn't want the link between Iran and bin Laden made public, even though the link was part of a court document," he added.

A U.S. government source told United Press International: "We are pretty sure that the explosives (for the bombing) came overland from stockpiles belonging to Syria and Iran in (Lebanon's) Bekaa Valley and near Damascus (in Syria)."

Iran was the chief force behind the bombing attack, with Syria "acting as an enabler," said one former CIA official.

But former U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and anti-terrorist expert Jerry Bremer said that the question of whether the government of Syria had approved of and participated in the operation still was not clear. "I think one has to be careful," he told UPI.

A U.S. government official said that the evidence indicates the terrorists were trained at an Iranian intelligence facility in the town of Saadabad, and at a secret Iranian intelligence camp 60 miles south of Teheran. Others came from the Hezbollah training camps at Janta, Anjar, and Baalbek in the Bekaa, and some from as far away as the Balkans, smuggled in via Syria and Jordan.

One source with close knowledge of the incident said that the first Iranian operatives arrived in Dhahran, the site of the bombing, as early as April 1996 -- more than two months before the bombing. He added that the operation was characterized by "advanced reconnaissance, planning and logistical support" built up in the Dhahran area.

There were advance probes of the compound, one of which included a tanker truck like the one that carried the bomb, "entering the compound and driving around."

The bulk of the bomb's components were in Dhahran by June, where Iranian or Iranian-trained bomb experts completed it, this source said. The fuses and other sophisticated components had been smuggled into Saudi Arabia in boxes labeled "computer parts" and addressed to the Saudi National Guard, he said.

The local Iranian network stole a Caprice, which was used as a getaway car and abandoned in Dammam, six miles south of Dhahran. The Mercedes-Benz tanker truck that carried the bomb had been stolen from a construction company only a few days before the bombings, he said.

"The fuses and detonators were identical to bombings used by the Hezbollah," he said. The fact that the bomb's oil and incendiaries exploded a fraction of a second after the high explosives meant it was a bomb "meant to kill and damage human organs by means of air pressure changes," as well as explosive concussion, a signature of other Iranian bombings, he said.

One former CIA official was critical of the FBI's early investigation of the incident. He said of the FBI: "They're scalp hunters. They march in and want to clap people into jail. What we (the CIA) want is to 'turn' these people and send them back as deep penetration agents that can work for us."

Another former CIA source said of the investigative team: "They were incredibly arrogant. Some women were there as part of the team, and they wore tight slacks and short skirts, utterly ignorant of Islamic law. The FBI rode roughshod over everyone."

The Saudis responded angrily, sending half of the FBI specialists packing, this source said. Prince Nayef, the Saudi Minister of Interior, then cut off access to suspects being held for interrogation.

In 1986, Prince Nayef announced to the Saudi newspaper al-Rai al-Amm, that the bombing was "executed by Saudi (dissidents) alone ... No foreign power had any role in it."

According to administration officials, Freeh worked hard to undo the damage, building ties with Prince Sultan, the Saudi Defense Minister who heads a side of the family of King Fahd that favors close ties to the United States. Prince Sultan also retains the belief that Iran still poses a serious and continuing threat to the internal stability of the kingdom, they said.

To further increase his clout, Freeh also enlisted the cooperation of new Secretary of State Colin Powell, including a meeting of the two before Powell left on his Middle East tour earlier this year. When Powell met the Saudis, he brought up the subject of the bombing and stressed the urgency of U.S. concerns, these officials said.

Asked about a recent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, one U.S. analyst said the deal had been engineered by Crown Prince Abdullah abdul-Azzis, who he described as notoriously anti-American. A former CIA official added that Abdullah has often accepted subsidies from the British and actively worked against U.S. interests in the past.

Another U.S. government official pointed out that a similar detente had occurred between the two countries back in 1998 when former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani paid a visit to the kingdom announcing "a new era in Saudi-Iranian relations." "The Saudis are very pragmatic: if a new relaxation of tensions relaxes the threat, then fine," he said.

-- Anonymous, May 07, 2001