Washington, Tuesday
THE US is still investigating the possibility that Iran and Syria may
have been involved in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, along with Libya, a
senior American counter-terrorism specialist said yesterday.
''We continue to pursue that,'' the expert told a small group of
reporters, under ground rules that barred identifying him or his
organisation.
Britain and the US have charged two alleged Libyan operatives with
planting the bomb that destroyed PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie on
December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
Before the US Justice Department brought its indictment of the Libyans
on November 14, 1991, the intelligence community's working theory was
that the bombing of the Boeing 747 had been a co-ordinated effort of
Syria, Libya, and Iran.
Vincent Cannistraro, chief of operations at the Central Intelligence
Agency's counter-terrorism centre at the time of the bombing, said there
was evidence Iran may have hired out the operation to both Libya and to
the Syria-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command.
He said there was strong evidence that Iran initially tapped Ahmad
Jabril, an alleged Syrian surrogate who heads the PFLP-GC, to retaliate
for the US navy's downing of an Iranian airliner in 1988.
But the PFLP-GC apparently handed off to Libyan operatives after its
Frankfurt cell was broken up by West German authorities in October 1988,
two months before the Lockerbie bombing, said Cannistraro, director for
intelligence programmes on the White House National Security Council
staff from 1984-87.
''Both groups were planning operations against a Pan American
airliner. Both of them wanted to avenge a perceived grievance against
the United States. Both were using bombs. Both groups were in close
co-ordination . . . ''
He said the intelligence community had never turned up proof of a
meeting or conversation in which Jabril's hardline Palestinian group had
passed such an assignment to Libya.
Former CIA director William Webster said before he retired that there
were ''a number of nations implicated'' in the bombing.
Since accusing the two Libyans -- Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen
Khalifa Fhimah -- the US has not implicated any other alleged state
sponsor.
Iran, Syria, the PFLP-GC, and Libya all deny any involvement in the
bombing.--Reuter.
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