Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Mohtashemi. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Mohtashemi. Sort by date Show all posts

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

The leading statement of the Iran responsibility thesis

[Five years ago today OhmyNews International published a long article by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer headed Former Iranian President Blames Tehran for Lockerbie. The following is merely a short excerpt:]

In an interview conducted on May 16 [2008], Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, told me that Tehran, not Libya, had ordered the bombing of Pan Am 103 in revenge for the downing of an Iranian civilian airliner by the USS Vincennes a few months earlier.

On July 3, 1988, the navy cruiser USS Vincennes, also known as "Robocruiser," shot down Iran Air Flight 665 over the Persian Gulf. The civilian airliner was carrying mostly Muslims on their pilgrimage to Mecca -- 290 died, most Iranians.

According to Bani-Sadr, in the immediate aftermath of the Lockerbie tragedy, [Ali Akbar] Mohtashemi-Pur, the then minister of the interior, acknowledged in an interview that he had contracted Ahmad Jibril, the leader of a Palestinian organization, to bomb an American airliner. The interview was scheduled for publication the following day. Hours before distribution, the newspaper was shutdown.

In the aftermath of the USS Vincennes accident, top figures in the Iranian government held a series of meetings in Beirut with leaders of Ahmed Jibril's terror group, the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command).

"Everybody in US intelligence knew about Iran's intention to bomb an American airliner in response to the downing of one of its own only months earlier. We knew that," former CIA operative Robert Baer explains.

"There was a smoking gun in July '88 that Iran hired Jibril to knock down at least one American plane," Baer told me. And indeed, media have long reported that high-ranking Iranian officials held a meeting with [Hafez] Dalkamoni, a trusted lieutenant of Jibril and a man said to be only known by the CIA as Nabil. In late October '88, Dalkamoni and Ghadanfar, alias Nabil Massoud, were arrested in Frankfurt where they were running an operation to destroy airliners.

"I was assigned to Paris in 1988 running down leads with French police on both Pan Am 103 and UTA [Union des Transports Aeriens] -- I do not know the ultimate judgment on the leads we produced. Or why precisely the case is being reviewed by Scotland. Keep in mind in your research that intelligence and evidence are two separate domains. Often it's the case [that] compartmented intelligence is not shared with the FBI. I do not know what the FBI was given or not given," Baer added.

"There's a world of intercepts and information from sources that is never shared with the FBI. This is because the controller of the information doesn't want to compromise the source. At the CIA, we look at the FBI as trying to get convictions, while intelligence is to get at a proximate truth."

Reacting to the downing of Airbus 665, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur swore that there should be a "rain of blood" in revenge. Mohtashemi had been the Iranian ambassador in Damascus from 1982 to 1985. He is widely believed to have helped to found Hezbollah in Lebanon and had close connections with the terrorist groups of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

The National Security Agency intercepted and decoded a communication of Mohtashemi linking Iran to the bombing of Pan Am 103. One intelligence summary, prepared by the US Air Force Intelligence Agency, was requested by lawyers for the bankrupt Pan American Airlines through the Freedom of Information Act.

A classified document prepared for the Multi-National Force during the first Gulf War reads: "Mohtashemi is closely connected with the Al Abas and Abu Nidal terrorist groups. He is actually a long-time friend of Abu Nidal. He has recently paid $10 million in cash and gold to these two organizations to carry out terrorist activities and was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus."

Caveat: Former FBI Special Agent Richard Marquise led the Lockerbie investigation. Marquise has told me that the document came from a source of unknown reliability. However, careful reading shows that the source makes a clear difference between rumours and facts.

While parts of the document reads: "Mohtashemi is said to [have done this or that]," the paragraph regarding Pan Am 103 is factual. It reads: "He has recently paid…"

The difference of style cannot be ignored.

Friday, 1 November 2013

The grim Lockerbie shadow over Iran’s new president

[This is the headline over an article by David Wolchover published yesterday evening on the Jewish News website.  It reads as follows:]

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly this month, Benjamin Netanyahu memorably described Hassan Rouhani, the recently elected president of Iran, as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”, cautioning that we should not be taken in by his “charm offensive” on the West.

Is this any more than bombastic alarmism, cried out in desperation by a worried man in charge of an increasingly-beleaguered Israel or is there substance in the warning? Analysis of Rouhani’s biography will provide a clear answer and it is chilling. His ostensible career as a serious-minded and seemingly decent person begins promisingly enough.

Educated at the prestigious Qom seminary with a clerical career beckoning, he went on to obtain his doctorate in Constitutional Law from Glasgow Caledonian University in 1999 with a thesis worthily entitled “The Flexibility of Shariah (Islamic Law) with reference to the Iranian experience”. Yet Rouhani’s distinguished scholastic attainment contrasts with a rather less happy connection with Scotland a decade earlier.

On 3 July 1988 a jumpy radar analyst on board the US Navy’s Gulf-based missile cruiser Vincennes identified an approaching aircraft as an Iranian F-14 Tomcat. Two missiles were launched but the target proved to be an Airbus, IranAir Flight 655, making the short hop from Bandar Abbas to Dubai with 290 passengers and crew.

Instead of eating humble pie, the Reagan administration ineptly tried to justify the tragedy as the consequence of a legitimate measure of self-defence and rubbed salt in the wound by awarding the hapless “air warfare co-ordinator” a navy medal for “heroic achievement”. Absurdly, the Iranian government claimed the destruction of Flight 655 was intended to celebrate the Fourth of July and with its traditional penchant for “symmetry” determined on revenge in like measure.

Following his 1986 showdown with the Regan government, Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi made a show of “going straight”, including cutting off funds from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine: General Command, whose founder, Ahmed Jibril, was forced to seek fresh sources of revenue. To Jibril, the Airbus incident seemed like manna from heaven and with its network of informants on the ground Israeli intelligence soon learnt he was serenading the Iranians with an offer to execute a contract of revenge. Using their combined technical resources, Mossad and the CIA obtained clear evidence of a deal between Jibril and Iran’s powerful hard-line interior minister, Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, by which Iran agreed to pay the PFLP-GC a bounty running into millions of dollars if it managed to destroy a packed American airliner.

The upshot was the destruction over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988 of Pan American Flight 103, with the loss of only 20 souls fewer than went down with the Airbus. The US chose to accuse Libya instead of the PFLP-GC, but even a cursory reading of the evidence against the only man to be convicted of the bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, shows the case against him, and by extension Gaddafi, was tosh. This article is not about retrying Megrahi, dead now for 18 months.

President Rouhani is the subject. But what has he to do with Lockerbie? For those who know their history of Iranian revolutionary power-politics, the answer is not difficult to infer.

We need to look at his connection with Mohtashemi, the Lockerbie deal-maker. As ambassador to Syria, Mohtashemi had a key role in the creation of Hezbollah in the Lebanon and although appointed interior minister in 1995 continued an active association with Syrian military intelligence in the Lebanon.

In that capacity, he was the natural choice to talk to Jibril and in agreeing to pay out millions of dollars for an act of war against the US we can be certain he was hardly engaging “on a frolic of his own,” as lawyers might put it. As a mainstream politician it is inconceivable that he was not plenipotentiary for his government and the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Supreme Leader had been quite prepared to sacrifice hundreds of thousands as cannon fodder in the Iran-Iraq war, demonstrating no aversion to the shedding of innocent blood, especially of citizens of the “great Satan,” the USA.

So to the supposedly-moderate figure of Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani, later to become president of the Republic. In June 1988, backed by Khomeini, who had at last seen the light, Rafsanjani was working on ending hostilities with Iraq. His star was in the ascendant but Mohtashemi saw the downing of the Airbus as a perfect opportunity to strike at Rafsanjani and discredit the rising influence of the moderates. Rouhani, born in 1948, was a contemporary of Mohtashemi’s, born in 1947, and had already been marked for high office, elected to the Majlis, the parliament, as early as 1980, and, importantly, a member of the Supreme Defence Council in the crucial period from 1982 to 1988. He held top military positions during the Iran-Iraq war, and was heavily involved in the Iran-Contra episode.

He held diverse positions of executive authority over Iran’s intelligence, security and clandestine operations establishment for a number of years straddling the fateful year 1988 and was plainly a significant player. As such it is inconceivable that he could have had no knowledge of the deal with Jibril.

Of course, exercising all due forensic restraint, it can be argued that knowledge of a plan is no proof of complicity in its execution or of having aided and abetted the instrumental perpetrators. Yet knowledge of the existence of a secret conspiracy is usually regarded as the best evidence of participation. The deal with Jibril can only have been authorised on the highest authority.

Rouhani was a high official in intelligence and security. He was a close ally of Mohtashemi in their opposition to Rasfanjani. Can he conceivably have played no role with others in formulating the terms of the contract and authorising his intimate associate to close the deal? Metaphorically speaking, the fingerprints of President Rouhani are all over the bomb that shattered Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

• David Wolchover is a barrister. He has written extensively on the Lockerbie bombing

Saturday, 29 December 2007

For years US eavesdroppers could read encrypted messages without the least difficulty

The indefatigable Ludwig de Braeckeleer has another article on the OhMyNews website. It contends that for decades the US National Security Agency has been reading the most highly sensitive coded messages sent by most foreign governments. This is because it succeeded in subverting the Swiss company that manufactured the encryption machines that most countries use for this purpose, and thus ensured that the individual machines were rigged in such a way that the NSA could decipher any messages sent through them.

As regards the relevance of all this to the Lockerbie case, De Braeckeleer writes:

"After the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, 'Iran vowed that the skies would rain with American blood.' A few months later, on Dec. 21, a terrorist bomb brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Once more, NSA intercepted and decoded a communication of Iranian Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi linking Iran to the bombing of Pan Am 103.

One intelligence summary, prepared by the US Air Force Intelligence Agency, was requested by lawyers for the bankrupt Pan American Airlines through the Freedom of Information Act.

'Mohtashemi is closely connected with the Al Abas and Abu Nidal terrorist groups. He is actually a long-time friend of Abu Nidal. He has recently paid 10 million dollars in cash and gold to these two organizations to carry out terrorist activities and was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus.'

Moreover, Israeli intelligence intercepted a coded transmission between Mohtashemi in Teheran and the Iranian Embassy in Beirut concerning the transfer of a large sum of money to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril, as payment for the downing of Pan Am 103.

The Iranians were now at a loss to explain how Western and Israeli intelligence agencies could so easily defeat the security of their diplomatic traffic. The ease with which the West was reading Iranian coded transactions strongly suggested that some may have possessed the decryption keys."

Later he comments:

"In 1991, the US and the U.K. indicted two Libyans for the bombing of Pan Am 103. To the surprise of many observers, the indictment did not mention those believed to have contracted the act of terror in spite of the fact that their guilt had been established by the interception of official communications by several intelligence agencies.

To many observers, justice was not served at the Lockerbie trial. Could it be that the US and U.K. governments decided to sacrifice the truth in order to preserve the (in)efficiency of their intelligence apparatus?"

For the full text, see http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=3&no=381337&rel_no=1

Thursday, 24 September 2015

Iran, not Libya, said US Defense Intelligence Agency

[What follows is excerpted from an item posted on this blog on 23 August 2009:]

It took the use of the US Freedom of Information Act to unlock the full intelligence documents which are now highlighted in the appeal submission. [RB: This refers to the appeal abandoned by Megrahi prior to his compassionate release.]

They show memos from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which suggested the downing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people in 1988, was in response to the shooting down of an Iranian Airbus by the American warship USS Vincennes five months earlier.

In a memo dated September 24, 1989, and reproduced in the appeal submission, the DIA states: ‘The bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran’s former interior minister.

‘The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad [Jibril], Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command [PFLP-GC] leader, for a sum of $1million [£600,000].

‘$100,000 of this money was given to Jibril up front in Damascus by the Iranian ambassador to Sy [Syria], Muhammed Hussan [Akhari] for initial expenses.

'The remainder of the money was to be paid after successful completion of the mission.’ (...)

The memos and reports, denied in full to the original trial, were available to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which, two years ago, cast doubt on the safety of Megrahi’s conviction based on six separate counts of the legal argument.

Their view opened the way for a second appeal.

[What follows is an excerpt from Dr Davina Miller’s article Who Knows About This? Western Policy Towards Iran: The Lockerbie Case:]

On 24 September 1989, the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), in a secret information report not releasable to foreign nationals and relying on information acquired through the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade (ie through Foreign Signals Intelligence), asserted that the attack on Pan Am Flight 103, “was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar (Mohtashemi-Pur)”, the former Iranian Minister of the Interior. The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad (Jabri’il), the PFLP-GC leader, for the sum of $1,000,000. The report was highly detailed in describing the organisation of the bombing and claimed that, “the flight was supposed to be a direct flight from Frankfurt to New York, not Pan Am Flight 103”.[xxxii][32]

In October 1989, a further DIA report noted that Iranian “radicals want to be able to retaliate in less time than it took them to carry out the Pan Am 103 bombing”.[xxxiii][33] The CIA’s ‘Terrorism Review’ for 14 December 1989 also noted that liaison between Iran and radical Palestinian groups “was most likely responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103”.[xxxiv][34]

The Defence Intelligence Agency in a brief in December 1989, titled “Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation” argued that, “Iran probably was the state sponsor for the PFLP-GC attack on Pan Am 103”. The same report noted:  that the bomb was “a sophisticated, barometrically triggered explosive device probably fabricated by the PFLP-GC”; that “DIA believes the device was placed aboard...in Frankfurt”; and that, “analysis of material confiscated from this PFLP-GC cell has provided strong circumstantial evidence linking the cell to the bombing”. The report further detailed the relationship between Iran and the PFLP-GC, including the initial overtures, payment for Pan Am 103, and the latter’s exploitation of Iran’s “established terror network in Europe”.[xxxv][35]

[xxxii][32]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 24 September 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010
[xxxiii][33]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 7 October 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxiv][34]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 14 December 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 19 March 2010.
[xxxv][35]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Brief, ‘Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation’, December 1989, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.

[RB: These links are now broken, but were operative on 13 December 2011 when I first posted extracts from Dr Miller’s article.]

Friday, 1 August 2008

More from Dr De Braeckeleer

In his most recent article in OhMyNews International (the latest in a multi-part series on the background to the Lockerbie disaster) Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer has this to say:

'Just days after the downing [of Pan Am 103], the Iranian charge d'affaires in Beirut, Hussain Niknam, invited [Ahmed] Jibril at the Iranian Embassy. A few days later, several meetings occurred in Tehran. Among the participants, one finds Mohtashemi-Pur, Jibril and several representatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah.

'According to the minutes of one of these meetings obtained by a German magazine, [Quick] Iran ordered the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 to avenge the shooting down of an Iranian civilian jet by the US Navy in the Persian Gulf. Tehran paid Ahmed Jibril about $1 million in advance to carry out the attack.

'"We had advanced notice. The smoking gun came in July," Former CIA case officer Bob Baer told me earlier this month.

'"We had info that Iranian representatives of the Islamic Revolution Guards have signed an agreement with a Palestinian group to bring down a plane. The investigation data was superb. It couldn't have been better," Baer has said previously.

'Patrick Lang, chief of the US Defense Intelligence Agency's Middle East section at the time, told me that he stands by his statement that "the bombing of the Pan Am flight was conceived, authorized and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, the former Iranian minister of interior."

'According to a DIA memo, "the operation was contracted to Ahmad Jibril for $1 million." The remainder was to be paid after successful completion of the mission. (Jibril's organization did receive $10 million on Dec. 23, two days after the bombing of Pan Am 103.)

'Various media have quoted Lang as saying: "I still agree with that. We felt quite sure that this was a PFLP thing." In a recent e-mail, Lang told me that he meant the PFLP-GC -- that is, the group led by Ahmed Jibril. The PFLP is another group.'

The complete article can be read here.

Friday, 18 November 2016

Hostage release part of deal to switch Lockerbie blame to Libya?

[Could the release of Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland on this date in 1991 by Islamic Jihad have been part of a deal with Iran to switch the blame for the Lockerbie bombing from Iranian surrogates to Libya? This hypothesis is explored in the following excerpt from Dr Davina Miller’s important article Who Knows About This? Western Policy Towards Iran: The Lockerbie Case (citations omitted):]

A deal between the US and Iran that involved the issue of Pan Am 103 is not an unreasonable hypothesis, given previous US behaviour and British and French ‘deals’ with Iran for the release of hostages. For example, on 21 March 1991, the CIA criticized Britain for having deported Mehradad Kokabi, an Iranian charged in connection with a bomb attack. While this would, “help Rafsanjani by using an issue used by hardliners to argue against the release of hostages”, it would also reinforce the view in Tehran that, “Washington, like London, will strike a deal favourable to Iran”. Equally, the CIA complained that the French government had earlier done a deal with Iran for the release of nine hostages between 1986 and 1988.

Even as the US was contemplating in early 1989 that Iran had a hand in the bombing of Pan Am 103, it was still signalling the hope for a deal with Iran on the hostage issue as expressed in President Bush’s inaugural address. As he said, “There are today Americans who are held against their will in foreign lands and Americans who are unaccounted for. Assistance can be shown here and will be long remembered”. (...)

US/UK indictments of the two Libyan suspects were announced on 13 November 1991. On 16 November 1991, Iranian radio declared that the indictments of Fhima and al-Megrahi represented, “the start of a new psychological and propaganda war by Washington against Libya”. A DIA report on 23 November, from intelligence acquired from Fort Meade, (that is, from Foreign Signals Intelligence) noted, however, that the “Iranian President voiced his pleasure in seeing the recent press attribute the blame to Libya for the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 bombing”.

On 18 November 1991, the American, Thomas Sutherland, and the Briton, Terry Waite, were freed by Islamic Jihad in Beirut. Later that month, there was a comprehensive exchange of hostages and human remains on one side and, on the other, prisoners in Israeli jails. On 2 December, the US also paid compensation to Iran some $278,000,000 for weapons confiscated in 1979. On 10 December, a UN report found that Iraq’s invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980, and the occupation of Iranian land that followed, were unjustified and illegal.

While many elements comprised the hostages deal, it could be argued that Pan Am 103 was necessarily part of the comprehensive settlement that involved, inter alia, money, prisoners, and international judgments about the Iran-Iraq War. It was necessary because, as the CIA commented on 1 June 1989, the Iranians “believe that the presence of Western hostages in Lebanon will help deter retaliation” for the bombing of Flight 103. It follows that Iran could not feel safe from US retaliation for Pan Am 103 (whether the retaliation was justified or not) if the hostages were freed without some guarantee. Thus, the eventual indictment of a rival state, it could be argued, provided that guarantee and was thus the necessary condition for the deal that followed.

Even before the final settlement, it is possible to argue that the US and Iran reached a tentative agreement about Pan Am 103. If Mohtashemi were the architect, as US intelligence seemed firmly to believe, using the back channels already established through ‘Irangate’, and relying on the policy of searching for moderates with whom to do business, it is possible that the US sought the isolation of Mohtashemi in exchange for a policy of non-retaliation. (...)

Sunday, 10 August 2014

The last thing that Washington wants is the truth about Lockerbie

[On the occasion of Tam Dalyell‘s 82nd birthday, I was trawling through posts on this blog that mentioned him and came upon one from 17 August 2009 headed The truth about Lockerbie? That’s the last thing the Americans want the world to know. Here are some excerpts:]

Why have US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her officials responded to the return of Megrahi with such a volcanic reaction? The answer is straightforward. The last thing that Washington wants is the truth to emerge about the role of the US in the crime of Lockerbie. (...)

Not only did Washington not want the awful truth to emerge, but Mrs Thatcher, a few - very few - in the stratosphere of Whitehall and certain officials of the Crown Office in Edinburgh, who owe their subsequent careers to the Lockerbie investigation, were compliant.

It all started in July 1988 with the shooting down by the warship USS Vincennes of an Iranian airliner carrying 290 pilgrims to Mecca - without an apology.

The Iranian minister of the interior at the time was Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, who made a public statement that blood would rain down in the form of ten western airliners being blown out of the sky.

Mohtashemi was in a position carry out such a threat - he had been the Iranian ambassador in Damascus from 1982 to 1984 and had developed close relations with the terrorist gangs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley - and in particular terrorist leader Abu Nidal and Ahmed Jibril, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.

Washington was appalled. I believe so appalled and fearful that it entered into a Faustian agreement that, tit-for-tat, one airliner should be sacrificed. This may seem a dreadful thing for me to say. But consider the facts. A notice went up in the US Embassy in Moscow advising diplomats not to travel with Pan Am back to America for Christmas. (...)

Places became available. Who took them at the last minute? The students. Jim Swire's daughter, John Mosey's daughter, Martin Cadman's son, Pamela Dix’s brother, other British relatives, many of whom you have seen on television in recent days, and, crucially, 32 students of the University of Syracuse, New York.

If it had become known - it was the interregnum between Ronald Reagan demitting office and George Bush Snr entering the White House - that, in the light of the warning, Washington had pulled VIPs but had allowed [Bernt] Carlsson, the UN negotiator for [Namibia] whom it didn't like, and the youngsters to travel to their deaths, there would have been an outcry of US public opinion.

No wonder the government of the United States and key officials do not want the world to know what they have done.

If you think that this is fanciful, consider more facts. When the relatives went to see the then UK Transport Secretary, Cecil Parkinson, he told them he did agree that there should be a public inquiry.

Going out of the door as they were leaving, as an afterthought he said: 'Just one thing. I must clear permission for a public inquiry with colleagues'.

Dr Swire, John Mosey and Pamela Dix, the secretary of the Lockerbie relatives, imagined that it was a mere formality. A fortnight later, sheepishly, Parkinson informed them that colleagues had not agreed.

At that time there was only one colleague who could possibly have told Parkinson that he was forbidden to do something in his own department. That was the Prime Minister. Only she could have told Parkinson to withdraw his offer, certainly, in my opinion, knowing the man, given in good faith.

[Tam then tells the story of a conversation he had with Margaret Thatcher at a dinner in 2001 hosted by the Colombian ambassador:]

Raising the soup spoon, I ventured: 'Margaret, tell me one thing - why in 800 pages...'

'Have you read my autobiography?' she interrupted, purring with pleasure.

‘Yes, I have read it very carefully. Why in 800 pages did you not mention Lockerbie once?' Mrs Thatcher replied: 'Because I didn't know what happened and I don't write about things that I don't know about.'

My jaw dropped. 'You don't know. But, quite properly as Prime Minister, you went to Lockerbie and looked into First Officer Captain Wagner's eyes.'

She replied: 'Yes, but I don't know about it and I don't write in my autobiography things I don't know about.'

My conclusion is that she had been told by Washington on no account to delve into the circumstances of what really happened that awful night. Whitehall complied. I acquit the Scottish judges Lord Sutherland, Lord Coulsfield and Lord MacLean at Megrahi's trial of being subject to pressure, though I am mystified as to how they could have arrived at a verdict other than 'Not Guilty' -or at least 'Not Proven'.

As soon as I left the Colombian ambassador's residence, I reflected on the enormity of what Mrs Thatcher had said. Her relations with Washington were paramount. She implied that she had abandoned her natural and healthy curiosity about public affairs to blind obedience to what the US administration wished. Going along with the Americans was one of her tenets of faith.

On my last visit to Megrahi, in Greenock Prison in November last year, he said to me: 'Of course I am desperate to go back to Tripoli. I want to see my five children growing up. But I want to go back as an innocent man.'

I quite understand the human reasons why, given his likely life expectancy, he is prepared, albeit desperately reluctantly, to abandon the appeal procedure.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011

Who Knows About This? Western Policy Towards Iran: The Lockerbie Case

[This is the title of an important article by Dr Davina Miller published earlier this month in the journal Defence & Security Analysis. The following are excerpts.  I sought permission from the copyright holders, the publishers Taylor & Francis, to quote from the article but was told that it would take ten weeks for them to consider the matter.  In the circumstances I have decided to proceed without formal clearance, relying on the fair use and educational use provisions of copyright law.]

Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by an improvised explosive device (IED) at 19.03 whilst over the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland, 38 minutes after leaving Heathrow, on 21 December 1988. The IED, installed in a Toshiba Bombeat RT-SF16 stereo cassette/radio player, was hidden in a brown hard-shell Samsonite suitcase. All 259 passengers and crew were killed together with eleven people in Lockerbie. More than anything, the issue of responsibility matters to the families of those who died, and the official narrative remains problematic for many.

A number of conspiracy theories surround this awful event. This article puts aside all allegations and speculation and relies only upon legal and governmental papers to examine the evidence. It is in three parts: first, it examines the official narrative that emerged in the course of the prosecution and conviction of  Libyan intelligence officer, Abd-al-Basit al-al-Miqrahi (al-Megrahi) for the Lockerbie bombing; second, it assesses the available evidence that the governments of the US and Britain knew that Iran via the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) bore responsibility for the outrage; and third, it investigates the plausibility of a deal between the US and Iran over Pan Am 103. To reiterate, this article is not definitive, but exploratory.

PAN AM FLIGHT 103: THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE AND ITS PROBLEMS
According to the Trial Court, the circumstantial case against al-Megrahi rested upon four interlocking planks: the presence of an unaccompanied bag from Malta to London; the identification of al-Megrahi as the buyer of the Maltese clothing found in the brown Samsonite suitcase containing the bomb; his presence in Malta under a false name at the time the bomb was placed on a plane; and his association with both Edmond Bollier, the manufacturer of the MST-13 timer, said to have been used in the IED, and members of Libyan Intelligence who purchased such timers.[iv][4]

The case against al-Megrahi depended upon the bomb having originated in Malta (on Flight KM180) since that was where he was on 21 December 1988. In contrast to the theory of the crime presented to the Trial Court, the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, published in May 1990, eighteen months into the investigation, determined that the bomb “probably was placed aboard at Frankfurt”.[v][5] The Trial Court, however, relied upon a Frankfurt airport dispatch record, which could have shown the presence of an unaccompanied bag from Malta. Nonetheless, it noted that, “the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 is a major difficulty for the Crown”, given the “relatively elaborate security system at Luqa airport” and that KM180’s baggage records show “no discrepancy”.[vi][6]

The US Defence Intelligence Agency noted on 30 December 1991 that, “Malta’s position on the Pan Am crisis supports Libya (i.e. Malta stated that it can prove that all the luggage on Pan Am 103 belonged to passengers on the flight)” (emphasis as in the original).[vii][7] Air Malta reached an out-of-court settlement with Granada Television in 1993 for its claim in a television documentary that the bomb had been loaded in an unaccompanied bag at Malta.

Another problem with the theory that the bomb began its journey in Malta concerns a CIA document. On 30 August 1989, the station in Malta noted intelligence from their Libyan agent, ‘Abd al-Majid Gaika, that there had been an External Security Organisation (ESO) survey of Luqa International Airport in 1986, which had found that controls there “ruled out insertion of unaccompanied baggage containing explosives on to onward flights”.[viii][8] In short, and in spite of Libya’s close connections to Malta, Libyan security had ruled out the very act of which it would be accused of having committed just two years later.

[The next section of the article deals with the well-known problems surrounding the “identification” of Megrahi by Tony Gauci.]

The third circumstantial plank of the case against al-Megrahi was his presence in Malta on a false passport at the appropriate time for placing the bomb on board a Maltese flight. Much was made of his use of a passport in a different name. However, as the CIA noted in a contact report on 21 January 1989, it was “common practice among ranking officers wishing to conceal their movements through the use of passports (ppts) bearing variations on their true names”.[xii][12] On 22 December 1988, the CIA reported that al-Megrahi had travelled through Malta earlier, on 7 December. The fact that he was then also travelling on a passport in an assumed name was reported without comment. The CIA also identified al-Megrahi as a “technical communications expert”. Further, its report went on to say that, “it is likely that el-Megrahi (sic) was carrying technical intelligence-gathering equipment with him” and was “involved in some type of technical intelligence operation”.[xiii][13]

[The next section of the article deals with the well known problems regarding the Mebo MST-13 timer fragment and the evidence of Hayes and Feraday.]

AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE: THE PFLP-GC AND IRAN
Al-Megrahi’s defence team presented evidence about the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF). In its judgment, the Trial Court argued that, while these organisations were engaged in terrorist activities during the same period, there was not any reasonable doubt - in spite of the Trial Court’s admission - that, “we cannot say that it is impossible that the clothing might have been taken from Malta, united somewhere with a timer from some source other than Libya, and introduced into the airline baggage system at Frankfurt or Heathrow”.[xx][20]

On 26 October 1988, the Federal Criminal Police Office, or Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), arrested members of a PFLP-GC cell in an operation centred on Frankfurt and Neuss and known as ‘Autumn Leaves’. Inter alia, the BKA found explosives, timers, barometric pressure devices, radio cassette players, Lufthansa luggage tags and airline timetables, including Pan Am’s. Most members of the cell, bar Haj Hafez Kassem Dalkamoni, the right hand man of Ahmed Jabril, leader of the PFLP-GC and Abdel Fatah Ghadanfar, a Palestinian associate, were released shortly thereafter.[xxi][21] Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) found later had pressure switches that would trigger about seven minutes after takeoff and timing devices with time elapsed between 35 and 45 minutes.[xxii][22]

Marwan Khreesat, the PFLP-GC Frankfurt cell bomb-maker - and a Jordanian agent - was interviewed on 12 and 13 November 1989 at the Headquarters of the Jordanian Intelligence Service. Khreesat “does not think he built the device responsible for Pan Am 103, as he only built the four devices in Germany” and did not use models with two speakers.[xxiii][23] Only three devices were recovered by the BKA. Khreesat had, however, seen “a not very good” device (the alterations to the radio cassette player could easily be discovered) that he believed Dalkamoni had taken to Frankfurt and handed over to Abu Elias, the PFLP-GC’s security expert. This he identified as being similar to a Toshiba RT-F423.[xxiv][24]

From 19-26 October 1988, Abu Talb, a member of the Palestine Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) in Sweden, who had ties to the PFLP-GC cell in Frankfurt, was in Malta as a guest of Abd El Salam (aka Abu Nada), a Director of the Miska Bakery. Talb took home clothing from Hashem Salem, Salam’s brother. He flew to Sweden on an open return ticket, but had no intention, he told the Court, of returning; it was simply a cheaper ticket than a single. He remained in contact with Abd El Salam.[xxv][25]

In summary, from the evidence presented at the trial, at the time of the bombing of Pan Am 103, there were two groups actively planning to attack Western aircraft and with the capabilities to do so. In addition, both these groups had links to Malta. (...)

Even after the indictments of Libyan co-defendants Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and al-Megrahi, intelligence documents continued to assert the involvement of the PFLP-GC, though it was now linked to Libya, rather than Iran. An information report dated 26 November 1991 assigned blame to Ahmed Jabril “in training the perpetrators and in designing the bomb”. The report goes on to assert that, “the luggage containing the bomb was purportedly intercepted in London by al-Megrahi, who probably claimed the bag, set the timer, then switched luggage tags to route it on to Pan Am flight 103”.[xxix][29] A Defence Intelligence Terrorism Summary on 13 December 1991 also linked Jabril with training the accused and in designing the bomb.[xxx][30]

It is not clear exactly when or why the PFLP-GC and PPSF were dropped as suspects post-1991 to leave a single focus upon Libya as the perpetrator of the Pan Am 103 bombing. (...)

On 24 September 1989, the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), in a secret information report not releasable to foreign nationals and relying on information acquired through the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade’ (i.e. through Foreign Signals Intelligence), asserted that the attack on Pan Am Flight 103, “was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar (Mohtashemi-Pur)”, the former Iranian Minister of the Interior. The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad (Jabri’il), the PFLP-GC leader, for the sum of $1,000,000. The report was highly detailed in describing the organisation of the bombing and claimed that, “the flight was supposed to be a direct flight from Frankfurt to New York, not Pan Am Flight 103”.[xxxii][32]

In October 1989, a further DIA report noted that Iranian “radicals want to be able to retaliate in less time than it took them to carry out the Pan Am 103 bombing”.[xxxiii][33] The CIA’s ‘Terrorism Review’ for 14 December 1989 also noted that liaison between Iran and radical Palestinian groups “was most likely responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103”.[xxxiv][34] The Defence Intelligence Agency in a brief in December 1989, titled “Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation” argued that, “Iran probably was the state sponsor for the PFLP-GC attack on Pan Am 103”. The same report noted:  that the bomb was “a sophisticated, barometrically triggered explosive device probably fabricated by the PFLP-GC”; that “DIA believes the device was placed aboard...in Frankfurt”; and that, “analysis of material confiscated from this PFLP-GC cell has provided strong circumstantial evidence linking the cell to the bombing”. The report further detailed the relationship between Iran and the PFLP-GC, including the initial overtures, payment for Pan Am 103, and the latter’s exploitation of Iran’s “established terror network in Europe”.[xxxv][35]

A Combined Message from the DIA on 22 December 1989 asserted that, “a compelling body of evidence indicates the PFLP-GC placed a sophisticated, altimeter-fused, radio-encased bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103”. The missing improvised explosive device (IED) from the Autumn Leaves Operation was noted: “the fourth device was believed to be a Toshiba radio/cassette player larger than the Bombeat 453” and “may prove to be the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103”. [xxxvi][36] In January 1990, the DIA then argued that, “Iran probably was the state sponsor for the PFLP-GC attack on Pan Am 103”.[xxxvii][37] (...)

A Defence Intelligence ‘Terrorism Summary’, dated 15 September 1990, summarised a discussion about Pan Am 103 and the PFLP-GC during a meeting between the US Secretary of State, James Baker, and the Syrian Foreign Minister. The Summary notes that, “although the US has provided evidence of PFLP-GC complicity, the Syrian government has dismissed it as insufficient”.[xl][40] A Defence Intelligence Terrorism Summary on 16 November 1990 asserted that, “The US has long sought Jibril’s expulsion for his role in the bombing of Pan Am 103”.[xli][41]

(...) in February 1991, eight months after the FBI had supposedly identified the timer which led away from the PFLP-GC and Iran, in an Intelligence Report for Multinational Forces, Desert Storm, the DIA noted Iran’s Interior Minister, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi’s payment of $10 million for “terrorist activities” and that he “was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103”.[xlii][42]

This Report was published in the UK media on 24 January 1995. UK and US officials insisted, however, that there was, “no credible evidence” linking Iran to the bombing and denied the claims made. Libya saw the report as, “exonerating” it of any involvement.[xliii][43] More tellingly, in November 1991, DIA officials commented upon an earlier report on Syria: “We found the article helpful. However ... the statement that the PFLP-GC is accused of bombing Pan Am 103 directly contradicts the recent announcement that Libya was behind the act”.[xliv][44] The anonymous officials did not question the veracity of the assertion; their main concern was about its being leaked.

While US intelligence services were asserting Iranian complicity, they ruled out Libyan and Syrian involvement. As the December 1989, “Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation” Defense Intelligence brief noted, the “DIA continues to discount Libyan or Syrian involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103 because there is no current credible intelligence implicating either”.[xlv][45] This was consistent with the conclusions contained in other DIA and CIA reports throughout 1989. (...) Both before and after the indictments, there was no discussion in US intelligence records of how to prevent similar future acts of Libyan terrorism.

CHOOSING ONE’S ENEMIES
The United States’ Potential Motives
Given the concerns around the safety of al-Megrahi’s conviction, the evidence pointing to the PFLP-GC and PPSF, as well as the US intelligence community’s apparent conclusion that Iran orchestrated the bombing of Pan Am 103, it is worth examining the circumstantial evidence as to the possibility of a decision, or a deal, to overlook Iranian potential guilt.

The most popular conspiracy theories attribute such a decision to the exigencies of Middle Eastern politics around the period of the first Gulf War of 1990-1. The investigation began to focus on Libya, however, at a much earlier time in September 1989, a year before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. While investigators sought to link Libya to the PFLP-GC, US government agencies retained and adhered to the original theory of the crime. For example, at least until late 1990, the State Department pressed Syria for Jibril’s expulsion, because of his alleged involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103. Moreover, US intelligence documents continued to speak of PFLP-GC and Iranian involvement long after the public focus upon Libya. (...)

A deal between the US and Iran that involved the issue of Pan Am 103 is not an unreasonable hypothesis, given previous US behaviour and British and French ‘deals’ with Iran for the release of hostages. For example, on 21 March 1991, the CIA criticized Britain for having deported Mehradad Kokabi, an Iranian charged in connection with a bomb attack. While this would, “help Rafsanjani by using an issue used by hardliners to argue against the release of hostages”, it would also reinforce the view in Tehran that, “Washington, like London, will strike a deal favourable to Iran”. Equally, the CIA complained that the French government had earlier done a deal with Iran for the release of nine hostages between 1986 and 1988.[li][51]

Even as the US was contemplating in early 1989 that Iran had a hand in the bombing of Pan Am 103, it was still signalling the hope for a deal with Iran on the hostage issue as expressed in President Bush’s inaugural address. As he said, “There are today Americans who are held against their will in foreign lands and Americans who are unaccounted for. Assistance can be shown here and will be long remembered”.[lii][52] (...)

US/UK indictments of the two Libyan suspects were announced on 13 November 1991. On 16 November 1991, Iranian radio declared that the indictments of Fhima and al-Megrahi represented, “the start of a new psychological and propaganda war by Washington against Libya”.[lviii][58] A DIA report on 23 November, from intelligence acquired from Fort Meade, (that is, from Foreign Signals Intelligence) noted, however, that the “Iranian President voiced his pleasure in seeing the recent press attribute the blame to Libya for the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 bombing”.[lix][59]

On 18 November 1991, the American, Thomas Sutherland, and the Briton, Terry Waite, were freed by Islamic Jihad in Beirut.[lx][60] Later that month, there was a comprehensive exchange of hostages and human remains on one side and, on the other, prisoners in Israeli jails. On 2 December, the US also paid compensation to Iran some $278,000,000 for weapons confiscated in 1979.[lxi][61] On 10 December, a UN report found that Iraq’s invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980, and the occupation of Iranian land that followed, were unjustified and illegal.[lxii][62]

While many elements comprised the hostages deal, it could be argued that Pan Am 103 was necessarily part of the comprehensive settlement that involved, inter alia, money, prisoners, and international judgments about the Iran-Iraq War. It was necessary because, as the CIA commented on 1 June 1989, the Iranians “believe that the presence of Western hostages in Lebanon will help deter retaliation” for the bombing of Flight 103.[lxiii][63] It follows that Iran could not feel safe from US retaliation for Pan Am 103 (whether the retaliation was justified or not) if the hostages were freed without some guarantee. Thus, the eventual indictment of a rival state, it could be argued, provided that guarantee and was thus the necessary condition for the deal that followed.

Even before the final settlement, it is possible to argue that the US and Iran reached a tentative agreement about Pan Am 103. If Mohtashemi were the architect, as US intelligence seemed firmly to believe, using the back channels already established through ‘Irangate’, and relying on the policy of searching for moderates with whom to do business, it is possible that the US sought the isolation of Mohtashemi in exchange for a policy of non-retaliation. (...)

CONCLUSION
This article is not definitive. Rather, given the persistence of counter-narratives, it seeks to explore the available reliable evidence. That there remain some problematic issues around the conviction of al-Megrahi is evidenced in the referral of his case to a further appeal by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2007. That appeal was never heard because of al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds in 2009. The Crown’s case rested upon four inter-locking circumstances, each and all of them problematic. Security at Luqa was ‘a major difficulty’ for the Crown’s case that the bomb originated in Malta. Moreover, Libyan intelligence, according to CIA reports, seemed to have ruled Luqa out as an airport for the insertion of IEDs because of said security.

The identification of al-Megrahi as the purchaser of the clothes found in the bomb case was, as the Trial Court acknowledged, ‘not absolute’. Subsequently it has been revealed that Gauci was paid for his evidence. Al-Megrahi’s presence in Malta on a false passport does not seem to have caused the CIA concerns in the late 1980s. A false passport was common among Libyan security personnel and the CIA had defined al-Megrahi as a ‘technical communications expert’. Finally, in terms of the bomb and its timer, the Trial Court noted problems in the evidence chain and subsequently the central US and British forensics staff involved have been discredited.

Turning to the defence’s theory of the crime, it is known that the PFLP-GC and PPSF had both the intention and capability for an attack on an airliner. In addition, they can be connected to Malta. Looking at the investigation, the PFLP-GC continued to be suspects, but with attempts from 1989 to link them to Libya. US intelligence spoke of “a compelling body of evidence” that “the PFLP-GC placed a sophisticated, altimeter-fused, radio-encased bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103” in December 1989 and the US was lobbying Syria, at Secretary of State level, for Jabril’s expulsion for Pan Am 103 in late 1990. The conviction that the PFLP-GC committed the bombing seems to have been widely held and long-lasting within the US government. Why there was an attempt first to link the PFLP-GC to Libya and then to abandon the “compelling evidence” against this group are interesting questions.

Given the attack on [sic; presumably "by" is meant] the USS Vincennes, less than six months before the bombing of Pan Am 103, Iran had, on the one hand, an obvious motive for retaliation against the US – and, indeed, US intelligence anticipated such action. On the other hand, Libyan motives were unclear, given that the anticipated date for an attack against the US was April (the anniversary of the Tripoli bombing in 1986). It is well known that the West had both a history of, and reasons for, backchannel deal-making with Iran, chief among those reasons the hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iran groups. Given the belief by some factions that the hostages were deterring US retaliation for Pan Am 103, it would be necessary for any hostage deal to entail a guarantee on said retaliation. It is possibly telling both that Rafsanjani took private pleasure at the Libyan indictments and that US intelligence reported it. (...)

Given the current mix of circumstances in the Middle East and South Asia, it has never been more important that the West gets its policy towards Iran right. It is equally important for democratic politics and the human rights of those who must live under such regimes that there is honesty about the foreign policy choices that the West is making.
This article and its references are the copyright of  Taylor and Francis, which must be acknowledged   ©Taylor and Francis 2011.

NOTES
[iv][4]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.87-89, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[v][5]  Report to the President by the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, GPO, Washington DC, May 1990, p. ii.
[vi][6] I n the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.38-39, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[vii][7]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Combined Message, 30 December 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[viii][8]  Central Intelligence Agency, Contact Report, 30 August 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 9 July 2010.
[xii][12]  Central Intelligence Agency, 20 January 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp , 13 July 2010.
[xiii][13]  Central Intelligence Agency, ’Travel of Libyan External Security Organisation Officers through Malta in December 1988’, 22 December 1988, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 9 July 2010.
[xx][20]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, para.82, http:/www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxi][21]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.73-4,  http:/www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxii][22]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Rainer Gobel, physicist, BKA, pp. 8793-8796.
[xxiii][23]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Edward Marshman, FBI Special Agent, p. 9268 and p. 9298.
[xxiv][24]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, Evidence, Edward Marshman, FBI Special Agent, p. 9300.
[xxv][25]  In the High Court of the Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No. 1475/99, Opinion of the Court, delivered by Lord Sutherland in causa Her Majesty’s Advocate v Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, paras.78-9, http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/library/Lockerbie/docs/lockerbiejudgement.pdf, 18 July 2010.
[xxix][29]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 26 November 1991, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxx][30]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 13 December 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxii][32]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 24 September 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010
[xxxiii][33]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 7 October 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxiv][34]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 14 December 1989, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 19 March 2010.
[xxxv][35]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Brief, ‘Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation’, December 1989, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxvi][36]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Combined Message, 22 December 1989, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xxxvii][37]  Defence Intelligence Agency, January 1990, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xl][40]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 15 September 1990, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xli][41]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Terrorism Summary, 16 November 1990, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xlii][42]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Report, February 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xliii][43]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 41, January 1995, Libya, p. 40380.
[xliv][44]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Memorandum, November 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[xlv][45]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Brief, ‘Pan Am 103: Deadly Co-operation’, December 1989, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[li][51]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 21 March 1991, http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp, 19 March 2010.
[lii][52]  President George bush, Inaugural Address, 20 January 1989, http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/, 20 March 2011.
[lviii][58]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, November 1991, Libya, p.38599
[lix][59]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 23 November 1991, http://www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[lx][60]  Defence Intelligence Agency, Information Report, 19 November 1991, http:/www.dia.mil/foia/panam103.pdf, 18 March 2010.
[lxi][61]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, December 1991, Lebanon, p.38694.
[lxii][62]  Keesing’s Record of World Events, Vol. 37, December 1991, Iran, p. 38697.
[lxiii][63]  Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, 1 June 1989