U.S. Fears Islamic Terrorist Influence In South America -- Training And Equipment Offered To Three Countries

MIAMI - The Clinton administration is stepping up efforts to help Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay fight what U.S. officials believe is a growing Islamic terrorist threat in a remote South American border region.

So concerned were administration officials about the alleged presence of Islamic terrorist support groups in the area that they canceled a planned visit by Clinton to picturesque Iguacu Falls during his South American tour in October, officials said.

In December, a three-person U.S. delegation of State Department and CIA officials visited the three countries to discuss U.S. cooperation in training intelligence officials and border guards, as well as possible U.S. assistance with equipment, officials close to the talks said.

Earlier last month, Argentine intelligence chief Hugo Anzorregui met with top CIA and FBI officials in Washington to discuss cooperation on the issue.

Link to 1992 attack

The flurry of talks on how to fight Islamic terrorist groups comes amid a near consensus in U.S. and South American intelligence services that members of the Islamic fundamentalist Hezbollah movement living in the three countries' border area were behind the 1992 bombing attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that left 29 people dead.

Intelligence services also believe the same groups may be linked to the 1994 explosion at the largest Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which left about 90 dead.

"The Americans are no longer seeing this as a problem related to the attacks on the Israeli Embassy or the Jewish community center," one South American official said. "They are looking at it as an area that could become a regional destabilization center."

Focus on smugglers' haven

With an estimated 100 clandestine airstrips in the area where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet, the Iguacu region has long been a smugglers' haven, thriving on clandestine trade in cigarettes, electronic goods, weapons and drugs, moving mostly from Paraguay to Brazil and Argentina.

The border area is a busy one. Tens of thousands of people cross the borders every day. Ciudad del Este, on the Paraguayan side of the border, has a daytime population of more than 200,000 people, many of whom return at night to the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu across the border. Puerto Iguazu, on the Argentine side, has an estimated population of 14,000.

Since the mid-1970s, more than 12,000 Arab immigrants have settled in the area, most legitimate merchants lured by Iguacu's thriving commerce.

The area began to draw U.S. attention as a possible haven for Islamic terrorists following the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires.

U.S. concerns about the Iguacu area intensified this year, after a murky November 1996 incident in Paraguay in which a Lebanese-born man arrested in Ciudad del Este was linked to an alleged Islamic terrorist plan to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paraguay.

Paraguayan press reports said 40-year-old Marwan Adam Kadi, also known as Marwan El Safadi, was part of a Hezbollah cell that was planning the bombing. The attack was to coincide with the anniversary of the November 1995 bomb at a U.S. military facility in Saudi Arabia.

Kadi was extradited to the United States on passport-fraud charges, and sent to a Chicago prison. He was later extradited to Canada, where he was wanted for having escaped prison while serving a nine-year sentence for drug trafficking, and is serving the remainder of his time in jail there, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Garcia of the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago.

Asked about the alleged bombing plan, Robert Service, the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay at the time, told the Miami Herald that "there was enough corroborating information to suggest that there was a plan against the U.S. Embassy." One U.S. source said Kadi is believed to have carried out "reconnaissance" activities for an eventual attack on a U.S. facility.

The U.S. Embassy in Paraguay canceled a party to celebrate the U.S. presidential election in November 1996 because of fears of a possible terrorist attack by Islamic groups, according to sources familiar with the event.

Kadi was arrested during a routine raid against smugglers at a Ciudad del Este apartment house, where Paraguayan security forces found double-barreled shotguns, several revolvers and pistols, and Canadian passports, the Paraguayan daily Ultima Hora reported at the time. Argentine officials assert they had tipped off Paraguayan authorities about the suspect's possible Hezbollah affiliation.

U.S. officials continued to remain concerned about the area as planning went forward for President Clinton's October visit to South America.

The president's original plan was to visit Iguacu Falls, and U.S. envoys had visited the area looking for possible sites for him to stay, U.S. and South American officials say. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was especially keen on the trip, they say.

Service, who retired recently after completing his tour of duty as U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, said U.S. concerns about the presence of Islamic terrorist groups in the Iguazu area "was one of the considerations" behind Clinton's decision not to visit Iguazu.

A well-placed U.S. official acknowledged that there had been "specific concerns about security in Iguacu," but said that scheduling problems also weighed in the final decision to cancel the visit.

According to South American diplomats, U.S. officials have continued to press their countries to tighten controls on the Iguacu border area. Some say Argentine President Carlos Menem, a close ally of the United States, is pushing the issue on behalf of the Clinton administration.

In December, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil signed a document to create a joint intelligence center to monitor the area. The new unit is to begin operations this month.