Legacy of Terror
Almost twenty-four years after Mohammed Rashed bombed an airliner heading from Tokyo to Hawaii, he has been sentenced to seven years in prison. The Washington Post reports:
The 59-year-old Jordanian-born Palestinian has been in U.S. custody for eight years. He previously spent eight years in custody in Greece, where he was captured and tried, and two more detained in Egypt. When he is released in 2013 and deported, he will have spent about 25 years in custody.
But after listening yesterday to the words of some of the people who were aboard Flight 830, where Rashed admittedly took one life and was trying to take many more in the Aug. 11, 1982, attack, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth was troubled by the prospect of imposing such a short sentence on a man who had scarred so many people.
Lamberth accepted Rashed's secret December 2002 guilty plea to conspiracy and murder charges, just over a year after the Sept. 11 attacks. The plea, he said yesterday in court, "was less troubling" then.
Rashed received a light sentence because he has been cooperating with counterterrorism officials investigating other attacks. His terrorist dossier is particularly interesting because, like so many other terrorists, Saddam's Iraq supported his organization. The Washington Post explains:
Rashed had been a member of a pro-Palestinian group that in the 1980s undertook a terrorist campaign against U.S. and Israeli interests, according to prosecutors. The group, known as the 15th of May for the date in 1948 when the first Arab-Israeli War began, was based in Iraq, with operatives around the world.
Although the 15th of May organization was not particularly active from the mid-1980's onward, Saddam still housed the group's senior leader, Abu Ibrahim, as late as 2001-2002. The State Department's 2001 Patterns of Global Terrorism makes that clear. But during its hey-day the group was especially prolific. The State Department's 1992 Patterns of Global Terrorism says that the group:
Claimed credit for several bombings in the early-to-middle 1980s, including hotel bombing in London (1980), El Al's Rome and Istanbul offices (1981), and Israeli Embassies in Athens and Vienna (1981). Anti-US attacks include an attempted bombing of a Pan Am airliner in Rio de Janeiro and a bombing on board a Pan Am flight from Tokyo to Honolulu in August 1982.
The State Department's report also says that the group "probably received logistic and financial support from Iraq until 1984" and "before disbanding, operated in Middle East, Europe, and East Asia..."
This, of course, does not mean that this group was a threat at the time of the U.S.-led invasion. But we know that during the 1990's through 2002 the U.S. intelligence community was not particularly focused on Iraq's role in international terrorism. There simply was no robust intelligence collection on Saddam's ties to terrorism. (This was confirmed by the July 2004 Senate Intelligence Report.)
This is especially curious. Saddam supported terrorists like Rashed for decades. Imagine what the U.S. intelligence community may have missed.
The 59-year-old Jordanian-born Palestinian has been in U.S. custody for eight years. He previously spent eight years in custody in Greece, where he was captured and tried, and two more detained in Egypt. When he is released in 2013 and deported, he will have spent about 25 years in custody.
But after listening yesterday to the words of some of the people who were aboard Flight 830, where Rashed admittedly took one life and was trying to take many more in the Aug. 11, 1982, attack, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth was troubled by the prospect of imposing such a short sentence on a man who had scarred so many people.
Lamberth accepted Rashed's secret December 2002 guilty plea to conspiracy and murder charges, just over a year after the Sept. 11 attacks. The plea, he said yesterday in court, "was less troubling" then.
Rashed received a light sentence because he has been cooperating with counterterrorism officials investigating other attacks. His terrorist dossier is particularly interesting because, like so many other terrorists, Saddam's Iraq supported his organization. The Washington Post explains:
Rashed had been a member of a pro-Palestinian group that in the 1980s undertook a terrorist campaign against U.S. and Israeli interests, according to prosecutors. The group, known as the 15th of May for the date in 1948 when the first Arab-Israeli War began, was based in Iraq, with operatives around the world.
Although the 15th of May organization was not particularly active from the mid-1980's onward, Saddam still housed the group's senior leader, Abu Ibrahim, as late as 2001-2002. The State Department's 2001 Patterns of Global Terrorism makes that clear. But during its hey-day the group was especially prolific. The State Department's 1992 Patterns of Global Terrorism says that the group:
Claimed credit for several bombings in the early-to-middle 1980s, including hotel bombing in London (1980), El Al's Rome and Istanbul offices (1981), and Israeli Embassies in Athens and Vienna (1981). Anti-US attacks include an attempted bombing of a Pan Am airliner in Rio de Janeiro and a bombing on board a Pan Am flight from Tokyo to Honolulu in August 1982.
The State Department's report also says that the group "probably received logistic and financial support from Iraq until 1984" and "before disbanding, operated in Middle East, Europe, and East Asia..."
This, of course, does not mean that this group was a threat at the time of the U.S.-led invasion. But we know that during the 1990's through 2002 the U.S. intelligence community was not particularly focused on Iraq's role in international terrorism. There simply was no robust intelligence collection on Saddam's ties to terrorism. (This was confirmed by the July 2004 Senate Intelligence Report.)
This is especially curious. Saddam supported terrorists like Rashed for decades. Imagine what the U.S. intelligence community may have missed.
posted by Thomas Joscelyn at 5:04 PM
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