OFFICIAL DECEPTION ON PARIS BOMBINGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940034-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 2011
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: October 29, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940034-2
't PEAM
; ASE
WASHINGTON POST
29 October 1986
STAT
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ATTA
Official Deception on Paris Bombings
F tench officials are deliberately misleading
their own people and the international press
about the true source of the terrorist
bombings that have rocked Paris in recent months.
They may be trying to cover up a secret deal that
the French hope will end the carnage.
Responsibility for the indiscriminate bombings,
which killed 10 persons and wounded 162, was
claimed by an unknown group called the Committee
for Solidarity with Arab and Middle Eastern
Political Prisoners. "With" may be the key word.
Each bombing was followed by a demand to
release three terrorists held in French prisons.
Two, Georges Abdallah and Anis Naccache, are
Maronite Christian Lebanese; the third, Varadjian
Garbidjian, is an Armenian Christian, born in Syria.
French officials from Prime Minister Jacques
Chirac down have convinced the press that
Abdallah is the key individual. He heads a small
terrorist group, the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary
Factions, but is charged with only minor crimes in
France. There's not enough evidence on which to
hold Abdallah for very long; the French will have to
set him free in a few years at most.
Naccache, who bungled an attempt to assassinate
an Iranian exile leader, is small potatoes. He
doesn't even belong to a terrorist organization
capable of a series of bombings.
As for Garbidjian, he is serving a life sentence,
with no chance of parole. for the 1983 bombing at
Orly Airport outside Paris that killed seven persons.
He asserted responsibility for the bombing.
Garbidjian is a top leader-if not No. 1-of one of
the deadliest terrorist groups in the world: the
Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of
Armenia (ASALA). In the last decade, ASALA
assassins have killed more than 70 Turkish officials,
family members and bystanders, and have wounded
more than 300 in attacks all over the world. ASALA
demands that the present Turkish government admit
the genocide of Armenians during World War I, and
that an independent Armenian homeland be carved
out of eastern Turkey.
Our sources who are terrorism experts
various Western intellia nce aetencies believe
Garbed ian is the French prisoner whose release is
the crucial demand of the Paris bombers. In this
scenario, Abdallah, the Lebanese terrorist, is just a
red herring to divert the press from a deal over
Garbidjian. In fact, a similar situation developed five
years ago.
On Oct. 25, 1981, ASALA launched a series of
15 bombings in Paris to win the release of an
ASALA leader, Monte Melkonian, and better
treatment for four other members charged with the
takeover of the Turkish consulate in Paris, in which
a security guard was killed.
Our sources confirm that the French cut a deal
with ASALA in January 1982. The bombings
stopped, Melkonian was set free and the four other
ASALA prisoners were given light sentences.
The truce blew up-literally-with the Orly
Airport bombing. Although Garbidjian tried to
convince the French it was an accident, they
sentenced him to life. Our inquiries into the
Garbidjian link have made French sources nervous.
Meanwhile, though, Chirac has succeeded in selling
the story that Abdallah is behind the bombings.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940034-2