"There is no logic in U.S. policies encouraging Islamization in parts of Europe and the states of Western Europe would be well advised not to cooperate with such policies."

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* The Jerusalem Institute for Western Defence *
* Yochanan Ramati ramati@jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il *
* P.O.B. 10610 Fax: 972-2-714585 *
* Jerusalem Israel 91103 *
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ISLAM IN EUROPE

Al-Watan Al-Arabi, Lebanon (publ. in Paris), 24 December 1994.

Summary of report.

Some days ago, French and German and other West European security services received a secret warning that terrorist cells had infiltrated their countries to prepare the ground for military operations together with fundamentalists and other extremists  already there. The terrorist underground is controlled and financed by Iran.

The report noted that the following organizations took part in recent meetings with Iranian intelligence in Teheran:

Fatah Revolutionary Council; leader Abu Nidal
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command;
leader Achmed Jibril
The Japanese Red Army
The Secret Irish Army [? the reference may be to the I.R.A.]
The Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
The Lebanese Revolutionary Organization; leader Mirshad Shabu
The Lebanese Hezbollah

All the above were represented by senior commanders. The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard participated in the meetings, together with Mohammed Mussawi, who is responsible for Iranian propaganda at Iran's Beirut Embassy. Upon receiving orders from Iran, the above-mentioned groups are now ready to carry out operations against U.S. and Western interests or to assassinate politicians and diplomats. This will be done whenever Iran is attacked or subjected to international threats intended to isolate it politically and economically, causing internal instability.

Since the signature of the Gaza-Jericho agreement on 13 September 1993, plans were made to upset it by terrorism. A prize of several million dollars has been offered for the murder of Yasser Arafat. In recent weeks, Western intelligence has reached the conclusion that, in reaction to the Israel-PLO agreement, there will be an intensification of terrorism - first in the occupied territories, then among Palestinians generally, still later in Lebanon and finally in various parts of the world, especially Europe.

Iran has opened training camps, including one at Qaranji near Qum, for commando units of the Hezbollah, the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Simultaneously, Iran requested Sudan to open training camps for Arab veterans of the Afghan war and North African fundamentalists presently in Europe. Activity in Hezbollah camps in the Western Beka'a valley [Lebanon] has also been intensified. There, instructors from Iran train new arrivals in guerilla warfare, the use of explosives and the preparation of car bombs. The presence of elements of the Japanese Red Army has been confirmed in the Beka'a valley and in Beirut, where they are stationed with the PLFP (General Command) of Achmed Jibril. The commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon has been meeting Hezbollah's operational command regularly.

Many of the terrorists are already stationed all over the world and have received their orders. Abu Nidal's plan to assassinate an Arab official in India this month was discovered, leading to the proclamation of an alert by the security services of many Western states. There are reports of suspicious activities of terrorist networks in Germany and France. In Germany, there are Hezbollah activists who are German nationals or are married to German women. Fundamentalist and radical Kurds are also participating in the realization of these Iranian plans.

During recent investigations in France, it was established that many Algerian fundamentalists have connections with the Lebanese Hezbollah and that the ties between Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front and Iran are now closer. Sudan's Hassan Al-Terabi helped to bring this about. The French are worried about the possibility of Iranian terrorist operations on their soil.

Germany is the main rear base of fundamentalists and extremists, including the Kurdish P.K.K., which is allied with Iran, members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalists - Turks, Pakistanis and Arabs - resident in Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. There has been much internal and external criticism of Germany for the concessions it has made to Teheran within the framework of a security pact signed recently in Bonn with Iran's Minister of Intelligence, Ali Plahiyan. Iran's relations with Western Europe have deteriorated.

Note: The most interesting aspect of this report is its attempt to ignore Syrian, Iraqi and Libyan complicity in the financing, training and activating of Arab terrorists. The Hezbollah operates from Syrian-controlled territory, with Syria's knowledge and connivance. The Kurdish P.K.K., here described as "allied with Iran", has been under Syrian control for decades. However, it is difficult to blame Al-Watan Al-Arabi for a line of propaganda originating in Washington. After President Clinton's humiliating appearance with Hafez Assad in Geneva, it is obvious that Syria - like Croatia, Bosnia and Albania - is now on the side of the angels. It is worth recalling that Hezbollah attacks on Israeli positions, which continue to claim many Israeli lives, are expressly permitted under the terms of the agreement ending operation "Accountability" mediated by Warren Christopher in Damascus. To blame Iran for them smacks of hypocrisy.

Iran tries to export fundamentalism and has connections with terrorist movements. But so have Syria, Iraq and Libya. This applies to terrorist cells in Western Europe too. These cells undoubtedly pose a danger, but the real Islamic danger to Europe will materialize if the Serbs are defeated in Bosnia (where a well-trained fundamentalist Handzar division of some 6,000 men, named after the Bosnian Muslim division that fought for Hitler, is operating with the West's tacit blessing) and if Muslim Albania realizes its ambitions to annex Serbia's Kosovo and Sandzak provinces with U.S. support. Such developments may well lead to the emergence of new terrorist movements among the 15 million Muslims of Europe. Saudi Arabia has donated $1 million for the construction of a "refugee camp" for Bosnian Muslims in Albania, which a BBC correspondent was told was really a training base for Muslim guerrillas. Strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Albania (which worries not only Serbia but also Russia and Greece) now reportedly extends to the use of Albanian territory as a base for pilotless U.S. spy aircraft monitoring the war in Yugoslavia. There is no logic in U.S. policies encouraging Islamization in parts of Europe and the states of Western Europe would be well advised not to cooperate with such policies. Under such circumstances, regarding Iran as the only source of Islamic peril can prove a dangerous red herring.