The terrorist industry

Murder Incorporated

John Laffin

The only surprising aspect of the terrorist arms cache found in London recently is that anybody should be surprised that international terrorism sends agents to London. When something like this happens we always act as if we had not previously been told the alarming facts of life. Yet Scotland Yard and various other government agencies have been warned of the encroachments of world terrorism by the Deuxieme Bureau, Mossad (the Israeli secret service), the Italian police, the German police and some British journalists.

Last year, in a Daily Telegraph article, I wrote about the steady development of the international terrorist community. But for a long time our protectors have instinctively associated terrorism only with the IRA and they regard any Arab attack in London as an aberration which does not really affect Britain. Only slowly, it seems, are they coming to realise that terrorists of the IRA, the PDO, BaaderMeinhof, the Minutemen, the Japanese Red Army and of many other groups are linked in a you-help-us-we'll-help-you organisation.

Following the discovery of the arms, grenades and documents kept in a Bayswater flat by the mysterious Carlos, the dailies were reporting that, "Police on both sides of the Channel were liaising after the discovery." After. Liaison should precede such events and needs to be continuous.

Terrorism is no longer merely political and no longer national. Whatever the motives for the establishment of groups such as the Palestinian, Yugoslav, German or Uruguayan terror groups, their development is largely dictated by economics and the laws of bureaucracy. Terrorism is big business, with low investment costs and immense profits. On a commercial basis, it is among the best paying industries in the world.

To speak of it in terms of guerrilla or commando warfare or as resistance or social struggle is about five years behind the times. The terrorist leaders are entrepreneurs, and terror is merely the commodity in which they principally deal. Other business 'activities are kidnapping, blackmail, extortion, narcotics smuggling, assassination and gun-running. Privately, some terrorist leaders will admit to the terror label but their well-financed propaganda departments push the notion of resistance and use the terms guerrilla and commando because they have a certain dignity in the West. The IRA thought this out long ago by referring to their leaders as 'battalion commanders' or 'company commanders' or 'quartermasters.' This subterfuge, they believed, would confer among the British general public an air of orthodox army respectability. And they were right.

The various national groups quickly realised that there is money in terror activity. For instance, the IRA found that it-could tap the wealthy Boston Irish community and permanent collectors are at work in the US, remitting millions of dollars to concealed bank accounts in Eire or investing it in the US. The Palestinians use the same methods to collect cash from Palestinians living in the US, Britain, Kuwait and other parts of the Arab world. Many voluntary contributions have been paid at the point of a knife or gun. The PLO and its subsidiary companies are now so wealthy that personal contributions are little more than petty cash but there has been no let-up in collections. "A principle is involved," a Palestinian propagandist has told me. Profits are also involved and it would be bad business to stop the cash flow.

The big money comes from four sources -direct subsidy by the oil-rich countries, hijacking, rewards for terrorist coups, blackmail.

For obvious reasons, the Palestinians have so far made the most money. The PLO gets its basic funds in grants from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Algeria. President Gaddafiof Libya provides £40 million annually, plus generous bonuses for outstanding successes — £5 million -for the Munich massacre, for example.

Altogether, during 1974 the Arab terrorists received £120 million in subsidies and they have been negotiating for rather more this year, largely to cover the greatly increased budget for world publicity in the form of paid advertisements. Gaddafi had helped in other ways. He ordered that 6 per cent be deducted from the salaries of Palestinians working in Libya; this money is sent to Yasser Arafat. He also established several terrorist training camps in Libya, and permits his diplomats to smuggle arms across international borders. The Libyan Embassy in Athens openly advertises its services as a recruiting office for potential terrorists.

Hijacking has paid handsomely, The Popular Front subsidiary of the PLO planned for three months to snatch a Lufthansa aircraft, took it to Yemen and ransomed it for a large amount, said by some sources to be as much as £5 million. Even allowing for the exhorbitant commission charged by the Yemeni government as middleman, the contractors made a good profit.

Rewards and bonuses are an established part. of terrorism. While Gaddafi is the principal rewarder, in Beirut it is common knowledge that an Arab bank pays head money — a bonus for every Israeli killed in a raid on Israel itself. The bank declined to widen the offer to include any Jew killed anywhere.

Blackmail, linked with extortion and protection, is an increasingly profitable part of the industry. Gaddafi paid Black September to bring back from Italy a Libyan accused of crimes 'against the people' during the regime of King Idris. The terrorists found the wanted , man but discovered him to be wealthy and struck a deal with him — if he paid them a certain amount he could go into hiding and they would report to Gaddafi that they could not find him.

Contracts are commonplace but only a few get into the news. Black September and PLO'ps

undercover group, Jihaz al-Rasd, have exten sive networks in Europe for work of this nature. They carried out the contract for the explosion at the Gulf Refinery, Rotterdam, in March 1971 and they regularly smuggle hashish into Europe.

Legitimate investment of funds raised by terrorist activities also produces a lot of money. The PLO probably has £50 million invested throughout Europe, much of it in Britain.

The terrorists of various countries have no great interest in one another's activities but expediency has brought them together. BaaderMeinhof terrorists knew that training with explosives and firearms would be virtually impossible in Germany, so they got this experience under Arab instructors in Jordan. The IRA, conceding that the Palestinians are the most experienced terrorists, imported some of them as instructors. The Palestinians themselves have used Japanese Red Army terrorists in Holland, France and Israel. The use of Japanese killers at Lod Airport in May 1972 when they killed twenty-four and wounded seventy-six pilgrims meant that all Japanese would be suspect in future, so the Popular Front and the Popular Democratic Front have been negotiating with South American terror groups for surprise attacks on Israeli targets. The South Americans say they are ready to tackle anybody except Israelis in Israel.

A major benefit for all terrorists in an international link-up is the establishment of safe houses in many countries. A terrorist who has to get out of his own country quickly can easily find somebody to hide him. Couriers and other travellers have stopover points where they cannot come under suspicion. The mysterious Carlos now being sought by British and French police probably has friends holding arms and passports in half a dozen countries.

In January last year several Soviet ground-to-air missiles were being passed around Europe by terrorists; this would hardly be possible without local help in each country involved, including Britain.

Another function of international terrorism is to exchange information and techniques but some gangs have foreign branch offices, sometimes operating openly. The PLO for instance, has a staff agent in London working against the good of the state.

Beirut and Damascus might be the terrorist operations centres but the heart of world terrorism is Tripoli, Libya. Gaddafi underwrites and directs much terrorism and provides the final haven for those terrorists too hot to be taken in elsewhere. Most foreign terror groups, inluding the IRA, have a permanent representative in Tripoli. The IRA man arranges for arms, ammunition and explosives and periodically the Libyans give him instructions about how the IRA should operate in Eire, Ulster and Britain. The car bombs which exploded in Dublin with so much destruction last year were probably the result of Libyan advice or influence, The world terrorist link-up was unintentionally revealed last November when the PLO was given the right to speak through Arafat at the UN Assembly. PLO offices in Beirut received telegrams and letters of congratulation from at least ten terror organisations; they saw Arafat as front man who might give them all neW opportunities and status.

No terrorist leader is likely to give up his activities unless forced to. What else could they do which would give them so much authority, prestige and money? All they need is a verY small number of simple-minded deeply indoctrinated young men trained in the use of arms and explosives. The bomb attack in Jerusalem last month was a case in point and from the PLO's point of view the results — thirteen dead and sixty-two wounded — were good. Add to this the possible fall-off in tourist traffic, the damage to Israeli nerves and the acclaim of the Arab world and the operation becomes

first-rate. The PLO can tell its backers that their money is not being wasted.

Israel appears to be the only country which realises that coming to terms with terrorists is self-defeating. It also realises that appeals to reason or conscience are futile. Western people are still ignorant on this score. For instance, after the name of Mr Norman Del Mar, the conductor, was found on Carlos's 'death list,' his wife told the press that it was nonsense. "My husband is totally non-political and I do not see any reason why his name should have appeared."

No reason is necessary, for such terrorism, by its nature, is irrational. If a man is a public figure, that is reason enough. Terrorists exclude nobody as a victim, for to them nobody is 'uninvolved.' To one of the Baader-Meinhof gang there is no such thing as an innocent Person: "We are all used and we must all expect to be used."

Just like any other business tycoons, terrorist leaders have their secrets of success. Arafat says, "We teach terror in the classroom." Habash, "The main thing is to have people always expecting terrorism." Ahmed Yamani, of the Popular Front, "Terror is just another form of psychological warfare."

Terrorism, for as long as it works, has built-in momentum. Iran now has its first terrorist group of modem times, responsible recently for the murder of two US Air Force officers. The Shah says realistically, "This group will never be finished while we have international terrorism."

He is one of the few Middle East leaders perceptive enough to see that terrorism can be particularly harmful to those who harbour terrorists. Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Sudan have all seen that this is so. Lebanon has learnt the lesson at particularly bitter cost, for the internal conflict — which has almost assumed the intensity of a civil war — has been brought about by public opposition to the existence of terrorists at the heart of Lebanese society. Nowhere has terrorism so reached the proportions of an industry as in Beirut. The PLO, the PLO Research Centre, the Institute for Palestine Studies, the PFLP and PDFLP and a score of other organisations have office blocks in the City. The office staff work normal office hours and take coffee breaks, public holidys and annual leave; they are paid regular salaries with annual increments and contribute to pension funds. I once attended a New Year office party at one of the terrorist organisations. What I remember most about the evening was a discussion on the relative merits of plastique and hard explosives.

To visit these offices, occasionally opulent, is a strange experience. Some have an armed man on the door but once he is negotiated, the pretty Office girls, the filing cabinets, telephone calls, Paper-covered desks, and calendars on the walls all lull one into the belief that here is a normal business. But the end product of all the discussion and inter-office memos is violence and office chiefs go home happily after a day of Plotting. I once saw a note, in English, on the desk of a departmental chief in Beirut, "if we could kill --we could terrify the entire Jewish population of New York."

The odds against the Jewish population anywhere being terrified are enormous but here was a murder message written with the same seriousness as one advocating nothing more violent than a switch to a new advertising agency.

All these organisations are taking on the characteristics of bureaucracy — rigidity, ritualism, regulations, defensiveness, difficul

ties in dealing with the public, a hierarchical system of authority, and an ever-increasing web of complexity. Most of them have Public Relations and Press officers who, in the time-honoured manner, distribute posters, key-rings, brooches and publicity material. On top of all this, the terror business is not hampered by strike action.

As world terrorism increases, London and Paris could well become its main exchange centres where contracts will be worked out, payments made, weapons provided, passports provided and help given by British and French ultra-left groups. London has great advantages. No city in the world is so anonymous, no city has a greater cosmopolitan population. And no city has so many ingenuous citizens who are surprised when foreign criminals are found to have had arms caches in Bayswater. Such innocence demands to be exploited.