WEST'S SECUIRITY AGENCIES STEPPING UP COOPERATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: April 3, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180003-0
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WASHINGTON POST
3 April 1987
West's Security Agencies Stepping Up Cooperation
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By Edward Cody
J' w?ni?,Fo, Post Foreig? Service
PARIS, April 2-Despite nation-
al rivalries and professional secre-
cy, Western European` security
agencies have significantly in-
creased cooperation and intelli-
gence-sharing in the fight against
terrorism, according to security
officials.
The coordination has intensified
particularly over the past year
among France, West Germany and
Italy, the three European countries
most affected by domestic and Mid-
dle East-related terrorism, the of-
ficials said. Although still limited
and bilateral, it has produced re-
sults in a number of cases by mak-
ing information obtained in one
country quickly available to a neigh-
bor's security services, they added.
In the past, such exchanges tra-
ditionally had moved slowly through
European security bureaucracies
fearful of exposing leads and
sources to foreign services.
France's recent arrest of eight
persons charged with planning ter-
rorist bombings in Paris, for exam-
ple, was made possible in part by
information passed along from West
German investigators. security of-
ficials here explained. Telephone
numbers in a notebook carried by
Mohammed All Hamadei, a Leba-
nese arrested at Frankfurt airport
last January, helped French police
focus on a Tunisian restaurant run
by one of the alleged terrorists in
Paris, they said.
In the other direction, information
developed by French police from an
abandoned car found loaded with
arms has been sent to West Ger-
many for use by police there in mon-
itoring Iranian nationals suspected of
trying to set up a logistics network
for future terrorist operations, one
security specialist reported.
Spanish security officials also
have received increased informa-
tion from their French colleagues
on Basque extremists along the bor-
der. Spain's move to democracy has
ended France's reluctance to deal
with the security' services of the
former Spanish dictator Francisco
Franco; but Paris' help for Madrid
has also come as part of the, general
European effort to cooperate
against terrorism.
On another border, French au-
thorities recently expelled several
Italians suspected of connections to
Italy's Red Brigades group. In re-
turn, security officials here said,
France has received information
obtained by Italian services inter-
rogating Bashir Khodr, a Lebanese :
arrested last January at the Milan
airport with plastic exlosives.
Such intelligence-sharing long
has passed through security and
intelligence liaison officers or dip-
lomats, posted in embassies. In the
new atmosphere, some European
countries have proposed tightening
the arrangement by stationing their
own liaison officers within security
agencies of another country.
This would put a West German
officer at the French Interior Min-
istry, for example, or an Italian with
Belgian security police. It would
mark a departure from traditional
security police attitudes, which
make secrecy such a strong prin-
ciple that on some occasions infor-
mation is withheld among agencies
of the same country. .
One European security official
said the measure ? nevertheless
could be adopted in the near future.
But broader political considerations,
including fears of allowing a "Big
Brother" apparatus, have prevented
installation of a multilateral security
computer bank where agencies and
border police from a number of
countries could run immediate
checks, he added.
Similarly, he said. political con-
siderations have generated a cau-
tious response to recent inquiries
from Warsaw Pact countries, in-
cluding the Soviet Union, for in-
creased cooperation against terror-
ism. Such cooperation would
present clear problems, such as
conflicting definitions of terrorism
or reluctance to pass any informa-
tion to Soviet-allied security ser-
vices. But one security official said
the proposals are receiving careful
consideration.
Even the cooperation level
among agencies in specific Western
European countries still largely de-
pends on personal relationships and
political atmospherics, the official
said. Increasingly, however, the.
n
e
relationships have
formally in written agreements as
European governments faced the
international nature of terrorism.
Italy signed such an accord with
France last October and has been in
contact with other European coun-
tries on the same subject. France
and West Germany have reached
agreement on a similar accord and
are scheduled to sign it this month.
Interior or justice ministers from
the 12 European Community coun-
tries have been meeting for some
time to coordinate security policies.
These high-level meetings are
designed to coordinate security pol-
icies rather than trade intelligence.
At the same time, officials said,
they have created an atmosphere
that fosters cooperation, including
intelligence-sharing at an operation-
al level.
U.S. security agencies also have
participated in the increased intel-
ligence-sharing and cooperation,
the officials said, but bilaterally with
each country.
Washington has advocated mul-
tilateral intelligence-sharing ar-
rangements and creation of an an-
titerrorism intelligence pool. U.S.
officials have su ested such an
accord among Brita nce it United ed
JaStat~ est Germany. the _
es d aasla.
But this idea has encountered
reluctance :among European gov-
ernments, particularly France,
which fear becoming associated by
implication with U.S. policies they
judge unwise.
Previous terrorism declarations
by leaders of the seven nations have
had little practical effect. At the
May 1986 summit in Tokyo, for
example, the Reagan administration
won a pledge from the other six
leaders not to export arms to coun-
tries that sponsor or support ter-
rorism, citing Iran.
, Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180003-0