Trail of Terror

This is the tale of a suitcase. It was a particularly lethal suitcase. At a designated hour, a timer inside it detonated enough Semtex explosive to blow a Boeing 747 out of the air. What most of us remember area the pictures. The pancaked husk of the fuselage in a field at Lockerbie, Scotland. The body bags. The investigators in a hangar poring over the reconstructed scraps of what was once Pan Am flight 103.

That was in December 1988. Four years later we still have no clear answer as to who was responsible for the deaths of 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground. The Justice Department claimed that Muammar el-Qaddafi did it. On November 14, 1991, it announced the indictments of two Libyans and charged them with superintending the fatal suitcase from its origin in Malta. The bomb in the suitcase was supposedly transferred from Air Malta flight 180 in Frankfurt to the Pan Am plane bound for London and New York. As evidence, investigators produced the remains of a shirt that one of the Libyan suspects purchased at a shop in Malta. The shirt, charred from the explosion, was said to have been wrapped around a cassette player that contained the bomb. A tiny piece of a circuit board was also found in a search that covered 845 square miles of Scottish countryside and was identified as part of a timer device traceable to Libya.

Time magazine didn't buy the story. Last April it disputed the Justice Department's claims and instead fingered a Syrian arms dealer by the name of Monzer al-Kassar. Although somewhat vague on the details of how the bomb was placed on the airplane, Time implicated the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--General Command, in the person of Ahmed Jibril. According to Time, this alliance of a Syrian thug and Palestinian radicals aimed to thwart the release of American hostages in Beirut. The actual targets, suggested this theory, were two U.S. intelligence operatives, Charles McKee and Matthew Gannon, who had been in Lebanon to explore a possible military rescue of the hostages and who went down with the plane.

Had Time, as it trumpeted, produced the untold story of Pan Am 103? Untold, maybe, but one with troubles of its own. Months after the Time article, separate cover stories in New York magazine and the Washington (continued on page 124) Trail Of Terror (continued from page 114) Journalism Review raised doubts about the veracity of Time's sources and the credibility of its reporting. Indeed, during the four years since the bombing, virtually every story has been refuted or questioned; many sources have been exposed as double or triple agents. If there is one overwhelming legacy to the tragedy over Scotland, it is the web the event.

I was aware of this last spring when I was offered an interview with a man who claimed to be familiar with the details of what had happened to Pan Am 103. The intermediaries who proposed the interview had proved reliable in the past, having led me to Abu Nidal, among others. They told me that been the intelligence chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--General Command. The PFLP--GC is a radical Palestinian group that has intermittently aligned itself with Syria, Iran and Libya. The former intelligence chief's name is Major Tunayb, a 17-years popular Front veteran and a member of its executive commitee for nearly seven years. Also part of his dossier is that he was a 1980 graduate of a Soviet military academy. Tunayb, 44, is reported to be an explosives expert who defected over a schism in policy with a more violent faction of the Popular Front. He was granted temporary asylum in the Middle East and may be the highest-ranking living member of the PFLP--GC to defect. I verified his identity with a high-level Middle East intelligence agent familiar with the Popular Front operations in Lebanon. I met with Tunayb, under heavy guard and in extreme secrecy, in a Middle Eastern country.

What follows, with minor editing, is a transcript of my interview with Tunayb. If the talk veers erratically, it reflects the intrigue that prevails in the Middle East. Here, every story has its mirror image, every informant its shadow, and fact-finding can be a tortuous endeavor.

[Q] Playboy: Are you a member of the group that organized the Pan Am 103 action?

[A] Tunayb: No. I am not in the group that carried out the action, but I am aware of it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you know how the operation was launched, and do you know the members of the group that carried it out?

[A] Tunayb: I know a few of them.

[Q] Playboy: Do you know how the bomb was brought on board the airplanes?

[A] Tunayb: Yes, the operation began in America and passed through Lebanon and then returned as far as Lockerbie, Scotland. The group that organized the operation did it for money.

[Q] Playboy: Who paid the group?

[A] Tunayb: Several sources. I can't identify them exactly, but they ought to be generally known.

[Q] Playboy: Where did the money come from?

[A] Tunayb: I don't know. I can say for sure it came from the Middle East.

[Q] Playboy: There are reports that Iran sponsored the group.

[A] Tunayb: It is possible.

[Q] Playboy: Therefore, you have no details and no proof.

[A] Tunayb: I have no precise knowledge.

[Q] Playboy: It was also reported that Ahmed Jibril planned and executed the operation with funds received from Iran. Is that true?

[A] Tunayb: It's a group from among his supporters, but Jibril himself had no knowledge of them.

[Q] Playboy: Jibril, therefore, didn't know that the bomb was going to be placed on Pan Am 103?

[A] Tunayb: I don't believe so.

[Q] Playboy: Who carried the bomb on board and how was it actually brought on the plane?

[A] Tunayb: The entire operation started in the U.S. By that I mean Khalid Jaafar. Khalid Jaafar had connections to fundamentalists in Lebanon.

[Tunayb is not the first to invoke Jaafar, a 20-year-old resident of Dearborn, Michigan who was killed on the plane. Within hours of the Lockerbie crash, CBS News in London contacted a top Drug Enforcement Administration official, Michael Pavlick, because it had received reports that pavlick had recruited jaafar for the DEA. According to a high-ranking Senate investigator, pavlick then called the DEA director in Washington to relay his concern that Jaafar might be somehow responsible for the bombing. Pavlick has admitted making the call, but in an interview with Playboy denied he knew anyone on the plane. Jaafar surfaced again on special segments of an October 1990 NBC Nightly News, in which correspondent Brian Ross reported Jaafar's suspected involvement in the bombing and referred to undercover DEA operations designed to snare drug dealers in Detroit who dealt in heroin from the Bekaa Valley.]

[Q] Playboy: Khalid Jaafar was a courier for the Drug Enforcement Administration's string operation. Is that true?

[A] Tunayb: I think Jaafar was connected to the DEA in the U.S. I am sure of it.

[Q] Playboy: He was also in contact with a Shiite group in Detroit, where he is from. Is that correct?

[A] Tunayb: Yes, he has a relation with the Shiites in Detroit that he maintained for the benefit of fundamentalists in Lebanon.

[Q] Playboy: Can you tell me exactly what happened?

[A] Tunayb: The operation had been organized by fundamentalists groups in the U.S. They knew that Jaafar worked with the DEA. They wanted to take advantage of the relationship between jaafar and the DEA to organize some operations in the future--whether smuggling or something for the benefit of the fundamentalist group. Khalid Jaafar traveled frequently to Lebanon with the knowledge of U.S. intelligence in order to follow the activities of drug traffickers from Lebanon to America and Europe. The last time he came to Lebanon, there was coordination between the fundamentalists and the group following Jibril. During that trip he was with two agents from U.S. intelligence who accompanied him all the way to Juniyah [in Lebanon]. He believed he was carrying documents that concerned fundamentalists in Lebanon. He had a bag that did contain documents, but it was later exchanged with the one containing explosives. He then went to Juniyah to wait for the American agents. He told them he had received the desired documents. They then accompanied him on his trip to Cyprus, and his bag was not searched at the airport. This occurred with the knowledge of the CIA.

[The possible role of the CIA in the crash of pan Am 103 is particularly convoluted. Time, among others, reported the CIA was running a rogue drugs-and-guns operation using al-Kassar's network to effect the hostages' release. In this theory, McKee and Gannon had stumbled upon the secret group and cut short their own mission and were returning to Washington to blow the whistle.]

[Q] Playboy: You're saying that Khalid Jaafar was transporting documents for Hezbollah, is that correct? (continued on page 144)Trail of Terror(continued from page 124)

[A] Tunayb: The bag contained documents concerning Hezbollah. It also contained some drugs, which was the primary purpose of his mission.

[Q] Playboy: Did he also work for the DEA?

[A] Tunayb: I don't know. Originally he worked for the DEA in the U.S. But he also worked for the CIA, which would facilitate his movements at the airports. His bags would not be inspected.

[Q] Playboy: Was the CIA also running a drug operation or allowing drugs to be smuggled in for other purposes?

[A] Tunayb: Yes. But he was accompanied on all his trips by one or two persons.

[Q] Playboy: The bag that Jaafar carried, or was supposed to carry, back with him to the U.S. was switched. Is that correct?

[A] Tunayb: I don't know exactly how the bag was prepared. There are various ways to prepare such bags. One is through chemical means, another is with a long-term timing device.

[Q] Playboy: You are talking now of the bomb. Who made the bomb?

[A] Tunayb: The same people who collaborated with the fundamentalists, as I already said. These people have experts who are extraordinarily competent.

[Q] Playboy: Are there specific persons who may have placed the bomb?

[A] Tunayb: You want names?

[Q] Playboy: There is a report that mentions the name of the person who did it.

[A] Tunayb: I don't know who in particular prepared the bomb. It's possible that several people collaborated.

[Q] Playboy: You don't know who actually prepared the bomb?

[A] Tunayb: No. There's more than one person.

[Q] Playboy: Was the timer from Libya?

[A] Tunayb: I don't know. Timers can be found anywhere. They don't have to come from Libya.

[Q] Playboy: Did the Libyans supply matériel, whether explosives, timer devices or money, for the operation?

[A] Tunayb: No, I don't think so. There are several places in the Middle East where these can be obtained. I don't believe the Libyans are behind it.

[Q] Playboy: When Jaafar was on his way back to the U.S., before he left Lebanon, was the bag with the bomb substituted for the bag with the drugs?

[A] Tunayb: The bag had been ready for a long time. But its purpose was unknown to many of the people in the group. There are always several bags that stand ready.

[Q] Playboy: So the bag was simply allowed to proceed to Frankfurt and to be put on board the airplane because it was part of the drug operation?

[A] Tunayb: Yes, from Cyprus to Frankfurt. Jaafar carried the same bag from Lebanon to Frankfurt and then as far as Lockerbie.

[Q] Playboy: The Libyans didn't have anything to do with it?

[A] Tunayb: No.

[Q] Playboy: Was the group that organized the operation aware that two intelligence agents--Charles McKee and Matthew Gannon--would be on board?

[A] Tunayb: No. The goal was just the plane. The only goal was the plane, nothing else.

[Q] Playboy: Thus, they had no intention of killing these people?

[A] Tunayb: No.

[Q] Playboy: Did an American agent have any knowledge that the bomb was going to be placed on the plane?

[A] Tunayb: I don't know. I had been out of the organization already for two or three months, so I'm not familiar with the exact details. All the information I have comes from friends.

[Q] Playboy: You mentioned that you aren't sure where the money for this operation came from. But you say it possibly came from Iran. Could Syria be behind it?

[A] Tunayb: I don't think it was either Syrians or Libyans.

[Q] Playboy: Ahmed Jibril was supposed to have received several million dollars for the bombing. Do you know if he received that money?

[A] Tunayb: I repeat: Jibril knew nothing of this operation. What I can confirm is that the operation was carried out by Jibril's group together with Lebanese fundamentalists. However, I don't know how much money they got for it.

[Q] Playboy: The fundamentalists hired the group on a free-lance basis, without Jibril's knowing anything about it ?

[A] Tunayb : Most likely

[Q] Playboy: Another source states that the plan was well known and had been reported to the Americans.

[A] Tunayb: I think so. The Americans, the British and the Germans knew there was going to be an operation. I can't say they knew the precise course of the airplane operation, but they knew something was going to happen in that area.

[Q] Playboy: Are you saying the American government knew in advance what would happen?

[A] Tunayb: The Pan Am operation? That I don't know.

[Q] Playboy: But were they constantly informed about the activities of the group in Lebanon?

[A] Tunayb: Before the operation was carried out, some of those who participated in its preparation were arrested.

[In October 1988, German police, acting on a tip of an impending terrorist attack against an airliner, conducted raids in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Mannheim, Berlin and Neuss, near Düsseldorf. They arrested several members of Popular Front cells. Most were released within hours of their arrest. But, with the help of an informant, the Germans later discovered bombs hidden by the group. They failed to find out what, if anything, they knew about the planning of Pan Am 103.]

[Q] Playboy: Had any of those people who were arrested disclosed information that might have been given to the American government?

[A] Tunayb: I believe so. But they could not deliver any detailed information because the participants in the operation didn't know the plane was the target. Of course, in these matters, individuals don't have all the details. Moreover, there are contingency plans, so that if the first fails, a second is used.

[Q] Playboy: You mean each member of the group knew only a portion of what was going to happen?

[A] Tunayb: They knew that there was an operation and they had their orders to carry out in a certain succession. But I doubt that they knew the target as such. All they had to do was carry out what they were ordered to do. Several people of Ahmed Jibril's group are under the command of someone named Abu Ahmed.

[Q] Playboy: is he still in Bekaa?

[A] Tunayb: Between Bekaa and Beirut.

[Q] Playboy: You knew of the operation. Did you do anything about it?

[A] Tunayb: I would have opposed it, but I had no knowledge of it. I learned this information from my friends afterward.

•

Certainly there has been no shortage of suspects connected to the explosion on Pan Am 103. But Tunayb, from his vantage in the Popular Front, may be offering intimate testimony. Vincent Cannistrero, a 27-year CIA veteran who recently retired as chief of counterterrorism operations, confirmed Tunayb's position in the PFLP--GC and also placed him at a key meeting between the Popular Front and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Core, an Iranian group that wanted to avenge the 1988 downing of an Iranian Airbus. It has been reported that the Pan Am attack was in retaliation for missiles fired from the U.S.S. Vincennes, which shot down a planeload of people on their way to Dubai.

But just how feasible is Tunayb's charge that fundamentalists in Lebanon duped one of the DEA's couriers into carrying the fatal suitcase? Was Pan Am 103 a "safe flight"--part of a regular route used by the DEA to transport drugs and money for sting operations? Certainly the lawyers representing Pan Am have charged just that, hoping to escape the huge lawsuits from the families of those who were killed. But on May 15, 1990, the president's commission charged with investigating the crash found "no foundation for speculation in the press accounts that U.S. government officials had participated tacitly or otherwise in any supposed operation at Frankfort Airport having anything to do with the sabotage of flight 103."

Five months later, however, NBC News revealed that the DEA was investigating whether a sting operation involving Pan Am 103 and Khalid Jaafar had been compromised by terrorists. Confronted with this report by NBC, commission chairman James Weidner vowed to renew the investigation if the DEA had deceived him. The DEA continued to deny that Jaafar was a registered informant. It further denied ever using Pan Am flights for drug shipments.

On December 18, 1990, two months after the NBC newscast, Representative Robert E. Wise (D--W. Va.) held hearings in Washington, D.C. to determine whether or not the DEA had any role in the bombing. Stephen H. Green, the DEA's assistant administrator of operations, testified that Jaafar had never been employed as an informant by' the DEA and that the DEA had never used controlled drug-courier flights on Pan Am through Frankfurt Airport. When asked if the DEA "had looked into Jaafar's background or family past" and if it was "aware that Jaafar reportedly made frequent trips to Lebanon from his home in Dearborn, Michigan," Green refused to answer in public session. The records of the private testimony about DEA informants or sources on the airplane remain sealed. Claiming that the indictments against the two Libyans effectively closed the case, the Justice Department ordered both the DEA and the FBI not to discuss the matter.

At virtually. the same time that Green testified in Washington and denied DEA use of controlled operations through Frankfurt, a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia returned an indictment against five members of a drug-smuggling ring headquartered in the Bekaa Valley. The five were charged with conspiracy to traffic drugs in the U.S. That indictment relied on evidence submitted by DEA undercover agents and detailed the group's activity in attempting to transport drugs on commercial flights through Frankfurt to Detroit and Virginia. Passage was facilitated by arrangement with authorities in both countries.

The day before Wise's congressional hearings began, Barron's, the financial weekly, ran a detailed front-page article that alleged the DEA frequently used Pan Am to facilitate drug-courier flights.

And what of Tunayb's mention of the CIA? The possible role of the CIA evokes even more complexity. One theory, advanced by Juval Aviv (the former Mossad agent hired by Pan Am as an investigator), was that the CIA piggybacked on a DEA sting operation to exploit al-Kassar's network to further its hostage-release efforts. This theory clearly serves the interests of Aviv's client, Pan Am. But others have also found it credible. Victor Marchetti, a CIA veteran, is quoted in Barron's: "I have always thought the essence of [Aviv's] report was true. Immediately after the bombing, the Bush administration was working its way back into Syria and hoped to make some back-channel connections to Iran so as to carry out the new administration's policy . . . to get the hostages out. [With Iraq's invasion of Kuwait] the cover-up is now more true than ever."

Of late, Iran is again being viewed as a pivotal power in the Middle East. It has been suggested for some time that the U.S. government was eager to steer the investigation away from Iran. In a January 11, 1990, column in The Washington Post, Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta cite high-level White House sources charging that UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and George Bush conspired to label the investigation inconclusive, while both had strong indications that Iran could be responsible. A November 17, 1991, "Outlook" piece in The Washington Post stated that "the final decision to accuse Libya exclusively also rests on nonforensic and nonevidentiary judgments, including assumptions made on the basis of political analysis." It is interesting to note that four days after the November 14, 1991, Justice Department indictment of Libya, hostages Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland were released by their Lebanese captors.

As we enter the fifth year after the tragedy over Lockerbie, it remains distressing that political factors continue to obscure the truth. Before its documents go into the shredder, and with a new president headed into the White House, it's time for the DEA to come clean. At the least, the agency--and CIA--could provide the American public with evidence concerning DEA use of safe flights on Pan Am, or other airlines, and reveal its dealings with Khalid Jaafar. Until then, the imperative is to continue to search for evidence and testimony such as this to get us to the truth.