ITALIANS SEE LINKS TO SYRIA IN AIRPORT ATTACK OF 1985

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740091-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 91
• Publication Date: February 6, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740091-3
6 February 1987
ON PAGE _ N_W YORK TIMES
Italians See Links to Syria in
Airport Attack of 1985
hand gi,endades, gun cotton and news-
1 Mr. Khaled who maintained he had a ers still covered with grease from
By-ROBE-R O SURD ro_ tac1,S wi h he intellieence ranch of P P
. the Syrian Air Force, also described Kalashnikov rifles.
Sn. ial?w-thesee -York Time< i Abu of Mr. Khaled said he was told whcrc to
Nidal's trainin cam s in a art
ROME, Feb. 5 - An Italian u- a Be as region o Le anon under find the weapons by Rashid al-Hamie-
I tot's report contends that a 1985 5 attack-
tta attack Syrian Army, .. control and he alleged da, who he said had coordinated the
nn the Rome airport was planned in that o rations ranging from sin le as- Rome airport attack and had also been
Syria and carried out by the Abu Nidal ;assinations to Zarge scale att~ asks involved in a 1982 raid on Rome's main
io rrorist organization, according to were care u y re earse there, the ot- synagogue, in which a :year-old boy
"ZrInior judicial officials. was killed. Mr. Hamieda's where-
The said.
The report charges that the four gun- Ff abouts are unknown.
men who conducted the attack had in- Members in Europe According to investigators, Mr.
tended to seize an Israeli airliner and During training Mr. Khaled said Abu Hamieda's most important role was to
blow it up over Tel Aviv but were foiled . Nidal operatives were repeatedly told act as a.liaison between the commando
when security men opened fire on that they would mount a series of ter- squad sent out from Damascus to con-
them, the officials said. :duct the attack and resident sympa-
The Abu Nidal rorist actions that would prompt a I
group on was the also r Vienna a world war. thizers who maintained the group's
airport, for the attack on the i ? Mr. Sica's report charges that the network of safe houses and arms
arport, which took place simulta- Abu caches here. Mr. Khaled said he never
I neously on Dec. 27, 1985, according to Nidal group is financed through
extortion against the rich Arabian Gulf had any contact with the local branch
the report filed earlier this week but
still covered by judicial secrecy. governments, and that it has a large of the organization. A total of 20 people died in the two at- number of resident members in Eu- In addition to Mr. Khaled and Mr.
rope, usually business executives and Hamieda, the prosecutor's report
tacks, including five Americans, and seeks an indictment against Abu Nidal,
st who
udent
rov
ort f
d
l
1
In his report the Public Prosecutor,
Domenico Sica, requests that three
people be.charged with perpetrating a
massacre. His recommendations are
being reviewed by & judge, who will de-
cide whether to call a trial.
Mr. Sica's report does not charge di-
rect involvement by Syrian Govern-
ment officials in the airport attack, al-
though it notes evidence of links with
the Abu Nidal group, according to a
magistrate familiar with the docu-
ment.
A parallel investigation into several
terrorist actions possibly organized by
Abu Nidal in Italy is still under way,
and that inquiry is trying to determine
whether Syria is supporting thettrouD.
said officials involved in anti-terrorism
efforts.
Italian and American officials con-
tended shortly after the 1985 attacks
that the attacks had been carried out
by the Abu Nidal organization and that
there was strong evidence of Syrian
support for the group. Syria denied any
involvement.
p
i
oca
supp
a
--
the group's operations, investigators a shadowy figure whose real name is
said. Sabry al-Banna.
Officials familiar with Mr. Khaled's The report maintains that Mr.
statements and the prosecutor's report Hamieda was probably prelent during
said the repentant terrorist also pro-
vided and detailed information on Abu for it to begin. An official involved in
Nidal's operations in Europe, much of the investigation said it agpeared that
which has been independently con- Mr. Hamieda was supposed to under-
firmed. take a diversionary aetioa+ilearhere in
The size and sophistication of the net- I the international terminal 'while the
work revealed by Mr. Khaled has su- four-man guerrilla team tried to round
prised law enforcement officers. One up Americans and Israelis before forc-
official said, "No one had imagined ing their way onto an El Al jetliner.
that Abu Nidal had so many safe The plan went astray wh EYAI se-
houses and so arms caches in so many curity guards opened fire on the four
places. It is frightening." guerrillas, killing three of them. and
Mr. Khaled said he had been involved seriously wounding Mr. Khaled Who
in Abu Nidal operations both in France was traveling under documents ide4ti-
and in Germany, according to officials fying him as Abdallah Sarhan.
who said his statements gained cred-
: ibility when he described a hiding place
in a Paris cemetery where the police
found. a bomb timer hidden inside a
toothpaste tube.
Buried Leather Bag
Investigators in Rome said Mr.I
Khaled took them to the Villa Glori, a
park in the northern part of the city, to
show them the spot where the weapons
used in the airport attack had been
buried. A bit of digging uncovered a
leather bag where the investigators
said they found security seals from
Confessions by Survivor
Many of the allegations in Mr. Sica's
report are based on confessions by the
one survivor of the squad that attacked
the Rome airport, Ibrahim Mohammed
Khaled, 19 years old. He told investiga-
tors that he had joined Al Fatah, the
largest component of the Palestine Lib-
eration Organization, when he was 11,
but then shifted his allegiances to the
Abu Nidal group after Israel's 1982 in-
vasion of Lebanon.
According to judicial officials, Mr.
Khaled provided a thorough descrip-
tion of Abu Nidal's headquarters in the
Rukh al-Din quarter of Damascus,
where terrorist actions were planned
and begun.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740091-3