U.S. TRAINS ANTITERRORISTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100390004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100390004-6
ART I .'LE A-p_EABE
ON F.rti3E /1 -
U.S. Trains
Antiterrorists
CIA, Military Aid
Foreign Squads
By Joe Pichirallo
and Edward Cody
V.attnRtm Post Staff Wrtters
U.S. military and CIA personnel
are training antiterrorist units for
foreign governments as part of the
Reagan administration's stepped-up
policy of combating terrorism
around the world, according to U.S.
officials.
The unpublicized program is de-
signed to increase the ability of al-
lied governments to thwart hos-
tage-taking. airplane hijackings and
other terrorist incidents through
special antiterrorist squads pat-
terned after the U.S. military's elite
Strike Force Delta that carried out
a failed 1980 mission to rescue
American hostzges in Iran, officials
said.
The training has been conducted
in about a dozen countries, includ-
ing Lebanon and Honduras, the of-
ficials said.
"It's part of a worldwide pro-
gram," said one U.S. government
official. "It's been very successful."
Information on the program was
furnished to The Washington Post
on a not-for-attribution basis by ci-
vilian government officials and mil-
itary sources after reporters
learned of the Honduran training
operation. Their descriptions pro-
vide a rare glimpse of sensitive op-
erations carried out by the CIA and
WAShINGTON POST
24 March 1985
the U.S. military in the little-publicized war
on terrorism that the Reagan administra-
tion has made a high priority of its foreign
policy. '
The counterterrorist assistance also has
included use of U.S. personnel to advise a
foreign government while a terrorist inci-
dent is in progress: For example, during a
recent hostage incident in Sudan, CIA and
U.S. military personnel advised the Suda-
nese and intelligence picked up by U.S. sp)?
satellites was turned over to them. The in-
formation helped Sudanese authorities pin-
point the location of the abductors, who
were linked to a secessionist southern rebel
U.S. personnel also advised Thailand dur-
ing an airplane hijacking in that country.
It is unclear when the United States be-
gan providing counterterrorism training to
foreign governments. Some sources said
the United States has been providing "se-
curity training" to foreign governments for
about the past 10 years. But the program
clearly has picked up under the Reagan ad-
ministration.
Officials said the effort is kept secret be-
cause individual countries might not want it
known that the United States is providing
such sensitive aid or might believe that pub-
licming it could tip off a potential terrorist
group. In Honduras, for example, members
of a 40-man U.S.-trained antiterrorist
squad, the Urban Operations Command,
have at times been portrayed as members
of a regular internal security force called
the Cobras, military sources said.
It tells people something if they know
we have the capability," said one official.
"And it might embarrass the host country
that we are training them."
The counterterrorist training in Hondu-
ras was carried out by U.S. Army Special
Forces personnel, or Green Berets, in col-
laboration with the CIA.
Code-named 'Operation Quail Shooter"
by the U.S. military, the training was con-
ducted in strict secrecy at the Honduran
Army's Special Forces Command at La
Vents, a small military installation about 22
miles north of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran
capital.
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time the CIA was directing the covert war
against Nicaragua raises new questions
about the military's true role there.
Critics of the administration's Central
America policy have questioned whether
extensive U.S. military activity in Honduras
has had the side effect of contributing to
Honduran and CIA support for anti-Sandi-
nista rebels headquartered there. They
note, for example, that a rebel official has
said an airfield at El Aguacate in central
Honduras that was improved by the U.S.
military has become a base for air supply
missions to guerrilla units inside Nicaragua.
The Pentagon, which has been conduct-
ing military exercises in Honduras since
early 1983, has repeatedly said the military
is not involved with the rebels or their ir-
r:. gular war, which was financed by the CIA
until a congressional funding cutoff Last
spring.
However, Barnes said through his
spokesman: "It (the training program] de-
monstrates a direct relationship between
U.S. military activities in Honduras and
those of the CIA. And it raises a serious
question of whether there is other military
involvement in other CIA operations" in
Honduras.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100390004-6