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.