The Tightening Links of Terrorism

Who they are and what they want

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," goes the old political maxim, which is one reason why terrorists are so hard to identify. Nonetheless, an expert in the subject, New York City Police Department Terrorism Specialist Captain Frank Bolz, estimates that there are 140 clearly defined terrorist organizations active in the world today. Some, like West Germany's Red Army Faction or Italy's Red Brigades, nihilistically seek to destroy the societies that shelter them, and give little coherent thought to ultimate goals. Others, like the Sandinista guerrillas of Nicaragua or the Islamic Marxists of Iran, have specific targets--overthrowing regimes they regard as corrupt and oppressive. Still others, like the Proves of the Irish Republican Army, regard themselves as the vanguard of regional independence movements.

At least one group is frankly mercenary: the Japanese Red Army will do other terrorists' dirty work--if the price is right. The participation of the Japanese in such incidents as the 1972 attack at Tel Aviv's Lod Airport and the 1974 takeover of the French embassy in The Hague in order to free a compatriot from prison points to an alarming central fact about contemporary terrorism: the growing links of these organizations. A number of West German radicals, for example, got their combat training at Palestinian-run camps in Lebanon and Southern Yemen. Libya, which seems willing to bankroll revolutionaries all over the world, has supplied many of the groups with arms.

These tightening links raise the conceivability of a global organization, or perhaps a loose confederation, with a single leader--a boss of all bosses of world terrorism. At the moment, the most probable candidate for that job would be Wadi Haddad, 48, a squat Palestinian who operates covertly from both Libya and Iraq. (He seeks anonymity to a point that one of the few pictures of him known to have existed has been stolen from the files of an Arab government intelligence agency.) Born in Safad, near Lake Tiberias, Haddad studied pediatric medicine at the American University of Beirut and later joined a fellow student, George Habash, to form the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Haddad split completely with Habash last year over the skyjacking issue.

Some students of terrorism believe that Haddad was the mastermind behind the skyjacking of both the JAL plane last month and Lufthansa Flight 181. Even if that is not the case, he has more than enough grim incidents to his discredit, including the 1968 skyjacking of a Rome-Tel Aviv El Al flight and the 1970 skyjacking of four passenger jets, three of which were later blown up in the Jordanian desert. Haddad also planned the 1975 terrorist raid on OPEC headquarters in Vienna, which forced the oil-producing states to pay $25 million to ransom their ministers. The commander of that attack was Haddad's sometime deputy, the notorious Venezuelan known as Carlos (real name: Ilyich Ramirez-Sanchez). Carlos has served as the liaison man between terrorist groups in Europe and the Middle East.

A brief who's who among major terrorist organizations outside West Germany:

ETA (for Euskadi ta Askatasuna, or Basque homeland and liberty). A separatist movement in the four Basque provinces of northern Spain. Generally Marxistoriented, ETA seeks total independence for the provinces (and links with Basque areas of France) and rejects government offers of regional autonomy. Estimated active membership: 60 to 120, with thousands of supporters in the northern provinces of Spain. Its archcrime: the 1973 bombing murder of Vice Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, then Franco's Premier.

The Palestinians. Of the six major organizations within the P.L.O., Habash's PFLP is the most likely to spearhead a resurgence of terrorism if Palestinians are not suitably represented at a Geneva peace conference. The PFLP is radically Marxist in ideology and seeks to overthrow conservative Arab regimes. Active membership: about 3,500 guerrillas. Terrorist exploits: skyjackings, bombings, an occasional tour de force such as the capture of more than 80 people who were held hostage in their Amman, Jordan, hotel rooms for two days in 1970 to dramatize the Palestinian plight.

The Japanese Red Army. A fanatic, radical leftist movement whose cloudy ideology is part Mao, part Trotskyite permanent revolution, part Che Guevarism. Merged from a number of loosely knit radical groups, the Red Army has only about 40 active members but has been involved in terrorist exploits in Europe and the Middle East as well as Asia. The best known: the 1972 massacre at Lod Airport, in which three Red Army terrorists, acting for the Palestinians, gunned down 26 people.

The IRA. The fabled Irish Republican Army in 1969 split into two wings: the Marxist "officials," who have temporarily gone underground, and the Provisionals, who carry on the struggle for Eire Nua (a New Ireland) on behalf of Ulster's Catholic minority. Since 1969 the Provos have killed 1,800, including 460 policemen or soldiers. But 1,000 Prove supporters are in jail, and the Ulster Catholics, who once idolized them, are weary of violence.

The Montoneros. Once a neo-Peronist youth group--the name means bushfighters--the Marxist Montoneros of Argentina were responsible for many of the random murders and kidnapings during the regime of Isabelita Peron. The military junta has mounted a countrywide war against these archetypal Latin American guerrillas, whose goal is to take over the government. At least 9,000 Montoneros have been killed or detained by police. But an estimated 12,000 remain at large, and their leaders--Mario Firmenich, Fernando Vaca Narvaja, Horacio Mendizabal--have close contacts with the Palestinians. The Montonero slogan: FATHERLAND OR DEATH.

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