U.S. EMBASSY/BOMB PLOT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200840004-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: August 24, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200840004-2
CBS EVENING NEWS
2! August 1983
L.S. E?iBASSY/ SAWYER: Last April's bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, in
BOMB PLOT which 63 people are known to have died, was one haunting
tragedy. Now Pentagon correspondent David Martin has learned
that the same terrorists had planned to strike again.
MARTIN: Government sources tell CBS News that within weeks of
the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut, U.S. Intelligence
uncovered a similar plan to blow up the American Embassy in
Kuwait. Like the bombing in Beirut, these sources says, the
intelligence indicated that the plot against the embassy in..*
Kuwait was being run from Tehran by the Iranian foreign
ministry. Security in Kuwait was tightened, and according to
one account, the U.S. secretly approached *Rafat Assad, brother
of Syrian President Hafez Assad, to ask for help in heading off
the plot. Rafat runs the Syrian intelligence services, and some
U.S. officials believe he provided safe passage through Syria
for the Iranians who masterminded the Beirut bombing. The plot
against the embassy in Kuwait never came off. It is not known
what role, if any, Rafat played in aborting the plot, but by
arranging the release a short time later of David Dodge,
president of the American University in Beirut, who had been
kidnapped and held captive in Iran, Rafat demonstrated his
ability to deal with Iranian terrorists. David Martin, CBS
News, the Pentagon.
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200840004-2