A SHORT REVIEW OF TERRORISM

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

What is international terrorism? It is the actual or threatened use of violence for political goals, directed not only against the victims themselves but also against larger, related groups, of a scope often transcending national boundaries.

Background.

International terrorism has been recurrent during periods of political and social upheaval. In the 19th century, anarchists in rural parts of Italy and Spain used terrorism, as did their counterparts in France. The Russian revolutionary movement before World War I had a strong terrorist element. In the 20th century, such groups as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, the Croatian Ustashi, and the Irish Republican Army (q.v.) often carried their terrorist activities beyond the boundaries of individual countries. They were sometimes supported by established governments, such as those of Bulgaria and of Italy under the fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

The wave of international terrorism that developed after the mid-1960s differed from earlier ones in its broader ramifications and greater impact. Several elements combined to make international terrorism easier and more effective: technological advances, resulting in both greater destructiveness and smaller size of weapons; the means available to terrorists for quick movement and rapid communication; and the extensive worldwide connections of the chosen victims.

Contemporary Terrorism.

The origins of the terrorist wave that began in the 1960s can be traced to the unresolved Middle East conflict between the Arab nations and Israel. Such Jewish radicalsas the Stern Gang and the Irgun Zvai Leumi resorted to terrorism in their struggle for an independent Israel in the late 1940s. Their Arab adversaries in the 1960s and beyond chose to use terrorism more systematically. The expulsion of Palestinian guerrillas from Jordan in September 1970 was commemorated by the creation of an extremist terrorist arm called the Black September. The Palestine Liberation Organization (q.v.) has conducted commando and terrorist operations both within Israel and in other countries.

The spread of terrorism beyond the Middle East in the 1960s was most conspicuous in West Germany and Italy. Inspired by vague Communist ideologies and typically supported by sympathizers in the affluent middle classes, the terrorists aimed to bring about the collapse of the state by provoking its violent, self-destructive reaction.

In West Germany, the so-called Red Army Faction, better known as the Baader-Meinhoff Gang, robbed numerous banks and raided U.S. military installations. Its most spectacular exploits were the 1977 kidnapping and murder of a prominent industrialist, Hans-Martin Schleyer (1915-77), and the subsequent hijacking by Arab sympathizers of a Lufthansa airliner to Mogadisho, Somalia. The gang frequently cooperated with Palestinian terrorists, notably in the murder of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. By the late 1970s, most activists of the Red Army Faction were either imprisoned or dead.

The strength of the Italian terrorists, the most prominent of whom were the Red Brigades may stem from the country's anarchist traditionand its political instability. Their activities culminated in the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Left-wing terrorism subsequently declined, thanks to police measures, although it by no means disappeared. Right-wing terrorism, however, seemed to increase in Italy, as highlighted by the bombing in 1980 of the Bologna railroad station. The historic Uffizi Gallery in Florence was among the targets of a series of terrorist bombings in 1993 alleged to be the work of the Mafia.

Terrorist movements in Latin America had their origins in long-standing local traditions of political violence. The main new development was the rise in so-called urban guerrilla movements, as terrorist activities shifted from the countryside into the sprawling cities. In the 1990s some members of the cocaine cartel in Colombia used terrorist tactics to get the government to curtail enforcement of the anti-drug-trafficking laws.

Anti-American Terrorism.

In the 1970s and '80s pro-independence Puerto Ricans occasionally engaged in terrorism to press their case against the U.S. government. But the greatest threat cameout of the Middle East, where many groups considered the U.S. to be their enemy. Several instances of hijacking (q. v.) by Arab groups brought tighter security to travel terminals around the world. But in 1988 a bomb destroyed Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 1991 charged Libyan agents with the crime. One of the most spectacular terrorist episodes in U.S. history was the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993; six people died in the blast, which caused an estimated $600 million in property and other economic damage. 

RED BRIGADES

Italian terrorist organization of the extreme left, active in the 1970s and '80s. It first attracted attention in the early 1970s, a time of great political turbulence, with bombings in major Italian cities, such as Rome, Milan, and Genoa, but it also engaged in selective shootings, especially of law enforcement officers, and kidnappings. Well organized, the group staged several bold raids, executed with precision. Thus, its leader, Renato Curcio (1940?- ), who was captured in September 1974, was freed in a commando raid on his prison in February 1975; he was rearrested later. The most notorious of the Red Brigades' acts was the kidnapping and murder of the former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. In late 1981 members of the group kidnapped a U.S. general stationed in Verona, but he was freed by the Italian police in January 1982. Numerous arrests of the brigades' members followed, severely draining the organization's strength.

PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO)

A political body representing Palestinian Arabs in their attempt to reclaim their homeland from the state of Israel.

Structure and Organs.

The PLO was founded at a congress in the Jordanian sector of Jerusalem in May 1964. Formed as an umbrella organization by refugee groups and fedayeen (commando) forces, such as Al Fatah, Al Saiqa, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, it was also joined by professional, labor, and student associations, as well as some individual members; the fedayeen, however, have always dominated it. Dedicated to mobilizing the Palestinian people "to recover their usurped homes," the organization, according to its charter, seeks the replacement of Israel with a secular Palestinian state and has sponsored numerous commando and terrorist acts both inside that country and internationally. It has, however, denied responsibility for such dramatic terrorist raids by Arab fedayeen as the murderous assault in 1972 on Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich.

The functions of the PLO are carried out by three main organs: the Executive Committee, a decision-making body in which the major fedayeen groups are represented; the Central Committee, an advisory body; and the Palestine National Council, which is seen as an assembly of the Palestinian people.

History.

Since 1968 the PLO has been headed by Yasir Arafat, leader of Al Fatah. At an Arab summit meeting in Rabat, Morocco, in 1974, the organization was recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," and Arafat subsequently addressed the UN, where the organization has an observer status.

In 1970 the PLO fought a short, bloody war with the army of Jordan, where most of the fedayeen were then stationed. Expelled, they settled in Lebanon, where they gradually became a state within the state, contributing to that country's disintegration after 1975. Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 greatly weakened the PLO presence there, intensified the organization's factional splits, and forced the dispersion of some 12,000 PLO members to Syria and other Arab countries. PLO members loyal to Arafat made their headquarters in Tunis; an Israeli bombing raid in October 1985 severely damaged the main buildings. In July 1988, King Hussein of Jordan ceded to the PLO all territorial claims to the Israeli-held West Bank. In November 1988, at a meeting of the Palestine National Council in Algiers, Arafat declared the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The council also voted to accept UN resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), recognizing the sovereignty of all states in the Middle East, and to use the resolutions, and acknowledgment of the Palestinian right to self-determination, as the basis for an international peace conference. The U.S. agreed in December 1988 to initiate direct "diplomatic dialogue" with the PLO. Relations with the U.S. and the pro-Western Arab states deteriorated in 1991, as Arafat publicly supported Iraq during the Persian Gulf War (q.v.) . In July the Lebanese army, with Syrian backing, forced the PLO to abandon its strongholds in southern Lebanon. In January 1993 Israel repealed its ban on PLO contact by Israelis. On Sept. 26, 1993, Chairman Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a historic peace agreement calling for mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. During 1994 Israel turned over responsibility for administering the Gaza Strip and Jericho to the newly founded Palestine National Authority, headed by Arafat.

TERRORISMTerrorism is the sustained, clandestine use of violence--murder, kidnapping, bombings--to achieve a political purpose. Definitions in the U.S. Intelligence and Surveillance Act of 1979 and the United Kingdom Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1976 stress the use of violence to coerce or intimidate the civilian population in order to affect government policy.

Characteristics

Despite loose and often unjustified attachment of the terrorist label to revolutionaries and armed insurgents in civil conflicts, not all orchestrated domestic political violence is terrorism. International law separates irregular warfare waged by insurgency movements against military targets from deliberate killing of civilians, indiscriminate bombings of nonmilitary targets, and violence or threats of violence against the population at large. The 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 has solidified the distinction by granting prisoner-of-war status to captured guerrilla fighters provided they have not committed crimes against civilians.

As a practical matter, the destruction by Arab agents of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988, the garage bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City by an Arab group in 1993, the car bombing outside the Uffizi Palace presumably by the Mafia in 1993, and a subway gas attack in Tokyo and truck bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City in 1995 were clearly terrorist acts. So have been the car bombings by the drug cartels in Colombia and the slaughter of Andean villagers by the SHINING PATH in Peru. Most historians would not, however, pin the terrorist label on the Polish and French resistance fighters of World War II. Terrorism was one of the weapons used by the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria and by the VIET MINH and VIET CONG in Indochina, even though it was only one aspect of a "war of national liberation."

Whether political assassination is a terrorist act depends on its association with a broader program of political violence. Thus the assassinations of Abraham LINCOLN and John F. KENNEDY, while undoubtedly politically motivated and even in at least one case part of a conspiracy, cannot properly be called terrorism. On the other hand, the assassinations of Tsar ALEXANDER II of Russia and of Indira GANDHI, prime minister of India, were part of concerted programs of political violence and hence fit the terrorism definition.

Governments engage in terrorism and from a statistical standpoint have been the major perpetrators of politically motivated murder, imprisonment, and mass intimidation in the 20th century. The outstanding examples have been Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; but in relation to the much smaller civilian populations involved, the murderous tactics of state security services and military "death squads" in El Salvador and Guatemala would run the totalitarian giants a close second. The sinister practice of mass "disappearances" adopted by the Argentine junta from 1976 to 1982 against the youth of that country established a new low in government terrorism.

One characteristic of revolutionary terrorism has been its quest for spectacular effects in order to attract media coverage and dramatize a political cause. Despite the horror occasioned by the hostage taking and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, followed by a wave of aircraft and airport bombings, these atrocities by PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO) terrorists elevated the Palestinian cause to a high level of world consciousness. The same has been true of IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (IRA) bombings in Britain.

Obstacles to Control

The principal obstacles to dealing with modern terrorism arise from its international dimension. Virtually all Palestinian and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has been funded and based outside the target area, notably in Libya, Syria, and Iran. Basque terrorist attacks in Spain and many IRA attacks in Northern Ireland have been mounted from across an international frontier. The 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro took place in international waters off Egypt, and victims, terrorists, crew, and vessel registration were of different nationalities. Aircraft hijackings and sabotage almost always transcend national boundaries.

This international dimension creates formidable jurisdictional hurdles to effective counterterrorist action. Domestic terrorism is the province of local law-enforcement authorities, and the problems of dealing with it are not much different from a legal standpoint than dealing with organized crime. But, where the site of the terrorist crime is overseas, or the suspects have fled to another country, traditional concepts of sovereignty severely limit the reach of national criminal law and jurisdiction. In practice, extradition proceedings run up against the long-standing political offense exemption and the fact that, except in the Anglo-American world, evidence derived from plea-bargaining of others is viewed as too tainted to support a fugitive's extradition. Radically different rules of trial procedure, admissibility of evidence, and defendants' rights often make convictions for crimes committed overseas difficult to sustain in U.S. appellate courts.

Since the rise of political terrorism in the 1960s there has been a concerted international effort to transcend these obstacles. The Tokyo, Hague, and Montreal Conventions of 1963, 1970, and 1971, respectively, and the United Nations Conventions of 1973 and 1979 have made aircraft sabotage and hijacking, hostage taking, and attacks on diplomats international crimes that, like piracy, are punishable by any state. These agreements, together with the 1977 European Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, primarily aim at laying a juridical foundation for the rule "prosecute or extradite." But, while they have undoubtedly energized transnational pursuit of suspects, some governments have viewed military reprisal as the only effective response to flagrant or repeated attacks: two examples are the 1986 U.S. bombing raid on Libya and Israeli commando raids on PLO bases in Lebanon and Tunis.

For democratic states difficulties in securing evidence and proving conspiracy, plus the overriding need to protect intelligence sources and surveillance techniques, have shifted the emphasis of counterterrorism methods from deterrence to prevention. Today the prevailing method of frustrating terrorist plans is through detailed intelligence from deep-cover agents and penetration of terrorist networks and support systems.

Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee on International Organized Crime by David Carey, Director, DCI Crime and Narcotics Center on 31 January 1996

On behalf of the Deputy Director for Intelligence, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to address the threat that international organized criminal groups pose to US national security interests and explain what the Intelligence Community is doing to improve collection and analysis on this issue. My remarks will focus on three elements of the threat--trends in transnational criminal activity; the impact of crime and corruption on political and economic stability in foreign countries; and expanding international networks and cooperation among criminal organizations.

First, trends.

Transnational criminal activities are growing in every region of the world as organized criminal groups take advantage of the lowering of political and economic barriers, societies in transition, and modern telecommunications, technology, and business practices that facilitate legitimate international commerce. Indeed, organized crime groups are moving aggressively into the legitimate economies of many countries as business owners, undermining opportunities for legitimate entrepreneurs and foreign investors, including US businessmen.

Drug trafficking Mafias in many countries are increasingly sophisticated and flexible in their operations and are expanding production and trafficking routes. Although cocaine and heroin will remain major narcotics threats, the production and distribution of new drugs are becoming a significantly greater problem.

The smuggling of illegal aliens is a thriving business worldwide. Alien smuggling rings in Latin America and Asia are not as highly organized as drug trafficking groups, but they work in close association with other smugglers and corrupt public officials.

Although organized crime groups appear to be only peripherally involved in the gray arms market--which is dominated by freelance brokers, corrupt exporters, and import front companies--conflicts in the Balkans and in the former Soviet Union have encouraged Italian and Russian criminal organizations in particular to expand their involvement in arms trafficking.

As criminal organizations grow in sophistication and expand their networks, they could become increasingly involved in supporting proliferation and terrorist activities. Their networks and mechanisms for illicit financial deals could also make them greater players in international sanctions violations.

The growing complexity and connectivity of the international financial system offer significant new opportunities for criminal organizations to hide the source of illicit funds, to invest in legitimate enterprises, and to engage in more sophisticated financial fraud schemes. Although

there has been no reliable information to date that any criminal group has attempted to manipulate international financial or commodities markets, the potential threat and implications are significant.

Next, impact.

Although criminal groups rarely organize politically, they can and do gain considerable power over political and economic systems through corruption, intimidation, and the economic influence they exercise. Public perceptions that government cannot cope with the power and

influence of criminal organizations or provide citizens and legitimate businesses security from criminal predators can erode support for national institutions and economic and political reform.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Russia, where Russian media polls consistently indicate that Russians regard organized crime as their country's most serious problem, with many believing the "mafia" has more power than the political leadership or bureaucracy. The intermingling of

the political, economic, and criminal sectors that dominate Russian society undermines the credibility of political and economic reform and encourages support for hard line, antidemocratic, anti-reform politicians. Russian criminal groups have significant influence in strategic sectors of the economy--like the oil and metal industries--through high-level political corruption and protection. They are infiltrating financial institutions, disrupting privatization programs, and deterring foreign investment. Not only is this hurting the Russian economy but also organized crime is making it more difficult for US businessmen to operate in Russia. The Russian military's criminal connections threaten the security of nuclear weapons and materials and continue to sap military preparedness.

Finally, expanding criminal networks and cooperation.

The problem of international organized crime is much more urgent than in the past because criminal organizations are becoming increasingly sophisticated and international in the scope of their activities. Russian criminal organizations are expanding their power and influence outside the borders of the former Soviet Union. Foreign criminal organizations--particularly Russian and Italian crime groups--are taking advantage of the political and economic transition in central and eastern Europe to establish new bases for money laundering and for transnational criminal activities like drugs, arms, and alien smuggling. Nigerian criminal cells in countries around the world are engaged in narcotics trafficking and significant financial fraud activities.

Meanwhile, criminal organizations are increasingly cooperating to broaden the reach and scope of their activities. The Colombian drug mafia and Italian organized crime groups have long collaborated in developing the West European cocaine market. Russian and Italian criminal organizations are cooperating in narcotics trafficking in Eastern and Central Europe. Asian and Latin American criminal groups cooperate in facilitating the transit of illegal aliens into the United States. Cooperation among criminal groups that is now primarily tactical in nature may become more comprehensive, with groups sharing information, services, resources, and markets according to the principles of supply-and-demand and comparative advantage.

For these reasons, the Intelligence Community is enhancing collection and analysis programs in order to provide national-level policy makers and the US law enforcement community with the best information and assessments of the international organized crime threats to the United States and its interests overseas. The Intelligence Community is focusing collection on the structure and networks of organized crime groups and on the political and economic implications of the problem. The CIA has reorganized the DCI Counter narcotics Center into the DCI Crime and Narcotics Center to focus analysis on international organized crime. The CNC is the Intelligence Community's focal point for interaction with the US law enforcement agencies with the aim of providing actionable intelligence on specific foreign criminal organizations. I will now be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.

The overall mission of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is to uphold the law through the investigation of violations of federal criminal statutes; to protect the United States from hostile intelligence efforts; to provide assistance to foreign and other US federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies; and to perform these responsibilities in a manner that is faithful to the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The FBI is the principal investigative arm of the US Department of Justice. The US Code authorizes the Attorney General to appoint officials to detect crimes against the US; other federal statutes give the FBI authority and responsibility to investigate specific crimes. At present, the FBI has investigative jurisdiction over more than 200 categories of violations of federal law.

The Bureau is also authorized to investigate matters where no prosecution is contemplated. For example, under the authority of several Executive Orders, the FBI conducts background security checks on nominees to sensitive Government positions. In addition, the FBI has been directed or authorized by Presidential statements or directives to obtain information about activities that jeopardize the security of the nation.

Information obtained through FBI investigations is presented to US Attorneys or other Justice Department officials, who decide if prosecution or other action is warranted. Top priority has been assigned to the five areas that affect society the most: counter terrorism, drugs and organized crime, foreign counterintelligence, violent crime, and white-collar crime. The FBI is also authorized to provide cooperative services to other law enforcement agencies, including fingerprint identification, laboratory examinations, police training, Uniform Crime Reports, and the services of the national Crime Information Center.

With respect to counterintelligence, the FBI is responsible for detecting and counteracting foreign intelligence activity that gathers information that adversely affects US national interests of security. The FBI conducts foreign counterintelligence investigations under the authority of Executive Order 12333 and acts of Congress.

With regard to counter terrorism, the FBI's mission is to identify and neutralize the threat in the US posed by terrorists and their supporters, whether nations, groups, or individuals. Terrorism is categorized as either domestic or international depending on the origin, base, and objectives of the terrorist organization or individual. Criminal acts investigated under the Counter terrorism Program include violations of the Protection of Foreign Officials statute, neutrality matters, nuclear extortion, sabotage, and sedition.

The agency now known as the FBI was founded in 1908, when Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte appointed an unnamed force of Special Agents to be the investigative force of the Department of Justice. The Special Agent force was named the Bureau of Investigation in 1909, by order of Attorney General George W. Wickersham. Following a series of name changes, the FBI officially received its present title in 1935.