GUERRILLA GRADS USE LETHAL SKILLS IN WORLD HOT SPOTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890005-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: June 27, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890005-0
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0S PAGE__UffM NEW YORK POST
27 June 1985
GUERRILLA GRADS
11cc
vmm LETHAL acivm'LLS
I
IN WORLD HOT SPOTS
FRANK Camper Jr.
doesn't like the descrip-
tion - but it would be
fair to call him a prof...
sor of terror.
In the last five years, he
has sent 200 super-tough
"graduates" out into a
world where they have
wreaked havoc in four con-
tinents with skills equal to:
the Green Berets.
Camper L a self-styled
mercenary, and he insists that
the expertise he instills on 30
acres of Alabama swamplands;
are mean! only to beevused ir
war situations against mili-
tary targets, not against civil-
But federal authorities believe
that be has trained at least one
Sikh now suspected of being a
conspirator in one the worst
acts of terrorism against civil-
ians in our time - the bombing
of Air India Flight 182, with the
loss of 899 lives, including TO
children.
That graduate is one of at
least two Sikh "honor students"
who are also fugitives from
charge. of participating in a
plot to kill Indian Prime Minis-
camper boasts that his stu-
thei arsenal of homicidal skills
"I teach war are in every
imaginable way, but if I ever
catch any of my former stu-
dents in acts of terrorism. I will
shoot them without a word," he
told The Post in an exhaustive
series of taped interviews this
week.
Still, in the double-think vision
unique to the world of merce-
naries, he admits his guerrilla
graduates who have earned a
black lightning-bolt patch on the
challenging campus of Redondo
School, at Hueyvllle 30 miles
from Birmingham, could be
"extremely well equipped for
terrorism."
"But to my knowledge, none of
them are involved in terror acts
against civilians," other than
the two Sikhs, Lal Singh, the
fugitive, and Sukwinder Singh,
held in New Orleans on the
Gandhi assassination charges.
They have, however, been pre-
sent at the massacre of Pales.
tine refugees in Lebanon's
Sabra camp; they have struck at
black dissidents in South Africa;
they have been in the ranks of
the Contras battling the Marxist
regime in Nicaragua, and they
have killed anti-Marcos gueril-
las in the Phillipines.
His training camp is a
bunker with cannons, rocket
dents can infiltrate even the launchers, and weapons and ex-
tightest security and pull off plosives of every known type.
anything from blowing up a nu- The campus is a 24-hour bat-
clew fi plant to poisoning water, tlefield.
Students dodge live bullets
They can take hostages, or
rescue them.
and bombs - at times losing an
eye or taking a steel slug for not
ducking fast enough.
Camper Jr. 8 a f rm r Vi - They must fight fellow stu-
n mm o and-self-de- dents for their booby-trapped
scribed - food - or starve.
bell at the u ton They torture each other sav-,
that agely, just for practice.
IlbdW"*7-
P UL THARP
They even hang each other to
demonstrate a silent assassina-
tion technique, and each student
must black out from the experi-
ence and be revived at the last
moment.
"We train people in specialized
operations, but there is a line
where I have to stop," the
stocky, bearded dean of destruc-
tion insisted in an exclusive in-
terview with The Post.
"I cannot by law train a unit
for a sabotage mission in an-
other country, but I have been
asked."
The law has not been unkind to
Camper, for whatever reason -
His encampment has been
raided by federal agents looking
for arms violations, and have
found known in a gun-loving
state where almost anything
goes in the hunting, self-protec-
tion and just plain gun-buffery.
None of which excludes learn-
ing guerilla arts applicable in
places like Beirut, Managua, or
Johannesburg.
They also know how to raid
a building, knock down its door
with an explosive charge, "and
spray it with machine gun fire.
"We call it house clearing. We
can enter in seconds and shoot
everybody on their feet. A hint if
you're ever taken hostage, is to
stay on the floor."
Tools of the trade include sim-
ple mechanical devices made
from metal rods and plumbing
equipment that can snap a pipe
in a dangerous chemical factory
- emitting poisonous gases.
A proud teacher, Camper
dwells on the skills and motiva-
tions of four Sikhs trained by
him - including the two Singhs
mentioned earlier.
They are "highly dedicated
holy warriors who are ex-
tremely determined and well or-
ganized for their aims,
"They have learned how to
handle explosives, bomb timers,
weapons, evasion and sabo-
tage."
Cor>tnued
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890005-0