THE TRAINING OF TERRORISTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100320002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: July 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/09: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100320002-3
ARTICLE ~EAREI~ BOSTON GLOBE
ON PAGE 1 July 1985
The training of terrorists
The murder of 329 passengers on an Air-
India flight. 80 of them children, was a hor-
rendous crime. If the victims had been killed
individually or in small groups, the crime
would be more comprehensible but no less
hideous.
One of the two young Sikhs suspected of
? planting a bomb on the plane attended a
school for mercenary soldiers in rural Ala-
bama. He had participated last year In a two-
week "survival course" that included training
in the use of mines, grenades and bombs.
Three other graduates of this school were
among five Sikhs arrested in New Orleans in
May in connection with an apparent plot to
kill Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi of India dur-
ing his recent trip to the United States.
The school in Alabama is run by a former
Army commando who served in. yietnam.
Hundreds of American and foreign "students"
have graduated from his course. They have
learned how to torture enemies, to booby-trap
food, to blow up a building, and to kill in a
variety of ways.
No one doubts that there is a market for
this kind of training. On every continent fa-
natics are ready to murder and mutilate as a
means of advancing their political or religious
ideas.
Many governments are willing to tolerate
this training when it serves their immediate
political ends. The United States is one of
them. President Reagan has defended the
right of individuals and groups to finance and
staff the revolution against the Sandinista
government in Nicaragua.
Two Americans who had been helping the
anti-Sandinista rebels were killed last August
when their helicopter was shot down over
Nicaragua. They were members of Civilian
Military Assistance, a private paramilitary
group based in Alabama.
At the time, officials of the State and De-
fense Departments and the Central me i-
ence n o ngress that can
perfectly 'Tor private ou to assist or-
e gn military operations. The ea an a min-
Tstation'ssition was that It neither encour-
agnor iscour American citizens from
engaging in such activities.
How do would-be terrorists and guerrilla
fighters learn about training schools such as
the one in Alabama? These schools are adver-
tised in several magazines that are devoted to
stories about weaponry and paramilitary
training. Major defense contractors support
such magazines with their advertising.
The United States cannot have it, both
ways. It cannot deplore hijackers and error-
ists while it tolerates "schools" to train them
on its own soil.
The techniques being taught are amoral
and apolitical. The method used to blow up a
Nicaraguan refinery can destroy an American
refinery in Angola. The terrorist technique
that worked to blow up an Air-India plane last
week can be used against an American plane
this week. There was nothing unique about
the tactics used by the Arab hijackers of TWA
Flight 847.
It is time for this country to come clean on
the terrorist issue. The Reagan administra-
tion should seek an international convention
to curb terrorism. It should ask Congress for a
law banning paramilitary education not un-
der the direct control of the US armed forces.
The president could ask defense contractors
as a patriotic duty not to support through
their advertising magazines that spread infor-
mation about terrorist techniques.
These measures would not banish terror-
ism but they would diminish it. and they
would bring to bear the full political and mor-
al weight of this country in behalf of sanity.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/09: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100320002-3