SWIFT ATTACKS UNIQUE FOR U.S.

Byline: Michael Matza Knight Ridder Newspapers

In nearly two decades of terrorist attacks aimed specifically at the United States, retaliation and prevention have been hampered by not knowing who to hit or where to strike back.

The United States launched missiles into Libya in 1986, and against Iraq in 1993, to punish those countries for sponsoring terrorist attacks or threats against Americans. But each time the target was a nation, not actual perpetrators, and so the punishment's impact was diffused.

This time, following the Aug. 7 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, a band of terrorists left what amounted to a return address. The United States decided to respond, in essence, with priority mail.

What made the simultaneous air strikes on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and an alleged chemical weapons plant in Sudan unique is the speed with which U.S. intelligence sources identified the likely perpetrators, and the swiftness of the payback - not against a nation but against the home base and deadly resources of a stateless, Saudi-exile multimillionaire who finances anti-American groups around the world.

``Rarely do numerous sources converge so uniformly and persuasively'' to identify a perpetrator, national security adviser Samuel Berger said after the air strikes Thursday.

The result was a stark departure from virtually all previous American responses to terrorism. With the swift and unequivocal missile attacks, the United States broke with a long-standing pattern of painstakingly building criminal cases against terrorists while slowly seeking diplomatic and political support worldwide.

Instead, for the first time in the modern era of terrorism, America's military directly and overtly attacked a specific terrorist group - and just 13 days after a terrorist operation.

``We are in a different ball game today,'' said Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ``We're going after a terrorist organization, and that calls for some different techniques.''

In his address to the nation Thursday, President Clinton pointed out that sometimes ``law enforcement and diplomatic tools are simply not enough.''

Sending a message

Clinton acknowledged that the strikes would hardly neutralize terrorist capabilities, but the United States sent a potent message: It is not some hamstrung giant, but a superpower willing to flex its muscles against any identifiable enemy.

``Our memory is long and our reach is far,'' said Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.

The cruise missile strikes, launched from ships in the Arabian and Red seas were timed to explode simultaneously at a terror-training complex south of Kabul and a chemical plant near Khartoum. Pentagon officials say both sites are linked to Osama bin Laden, the high-profile Persian Gulf businessman whose $250 million fortune has funded a range of anti-American activities, including the attempted bombing of American servicemen stationed in Yemen in 1992.

There was a certain symmetry to the operation: The missiles hit Sudan and Afghanistan at the same instant, a pointed response to the simultaneous terrorist attacks in Kenya and Tanzania.

``This not a flash in the pan. This is just step one. I don't know what the follow-on strikes will be - my security clearance doesn't go that high - but they are coming,'' said William J. Taylor Jr. of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a specialist in counterterrorism. ``With someone like bin Laden, who is the highest profile, wealthiest guy in all of this, you send a message: Here we come.'' One goal of the operation, Taylor said, is to ``defang the sucker.''

Wesleyan University professor Martha Crenshaw, author of ``Terrorism in Context,'' said bin Laden's financial and organizational infrastructure makes him an important threat. But it also makes him vulnerable because he owns factories and controlling interests in material properties that have specific locations.

``You can retaliate against an organization that has parts,'' Crenshaw said. ``It's not totally invisible. When terrorist organizations are underground, they are underground. Bin Laden has a network that is partly above ground and is worth something if you target it.''

Outside of diplomacy

Diplomatically, the missile strikes did not pose insurmountable problems because both Sudan and Afghanistan are chaotic, isolated nations embroiled in civil wars. Neither country has a fully functioning government, and neither has diplomatic relations with the United States.

The speed and precision of the U.S. counterterrorism response, Crenshaw said, is different than working through diplomatic channels to arrest suspects and bring them to trial in the United States - or working through the U.N. Security Council to win consensus for a counterattack.

Lightning quick raids timed simultaneously on two continents seemed ``similar to the way Israel has responded when it has attacked Hezbollah camps in Lebanon,'' Crenshaw said.

Within hours of Thursday's missile strikes, Clinton addressed the nation, saying the United States had ``compelling information'' that bin Laden was responsible for twin bombings that killed 12 Americans and 300 Africans and that he was planning more attacks.

``We have convincing evidence (that bin Laden's groups) played the key role in the embassy bombings,'' Clinton said. ``Today, we have struck back.''

Bad forgery

Although bin Laden was suspected from the beginning, senior administration officials said investigators got a break in the case when Pakistani immigration officials arrested Mohammed Sadiq Odeh, an engineer who used a poorly forged Yemeni passport to travel from Nairobi to Karachi just hours after the Aug. 7 bombings.

In custody, Odeh began talking, offering details on bin Laden's whereabouts, other attacks in the planning stages, and an upcoming meeting scheduled for Thursday of bin Laden's upper echelons at his terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.

Albright and Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet agreed that the timing was right for decisive military action. On Friday, Aug. 14, Gen. Shelton and Secretary of Defense William Cohen presented the president with a detailed plan for the missile strikes.

Clinton approved the plan, with the proviso that could call the whole thing off anytime before Thursday at 6 a.m. After that, there would be no turning back.

On Wednesday, a top official of the National Security Council, Gen. Donald Kerrick, traveled secretly to the president's borrowed vacation home on Martha's Vineyard to work with him as the plan moved into its final hours.

The barrage of cruise missiles struck their targets at 10:30 p.m. PDT Thursday - 7:30 p.m. local time in the Sudan; 10 p.m. in Afghanistan. Thirty minutes later, the operation was done.

Administration sources said the timing was intended to minimize civilian casualties at the Sudanese chemical plant, which was closed for the day, and to catch as many terrorists as possible in their beds at the Afghan camp where they trained.

Pentagon officials said some of the missiles, each costing about $750,000 and carrying a payload of nearly 1,000 pounds, were configured with warheads designed to cause maximum casualties inside the camps. More than 70 were launched at the two targets, officials said.

Berger said the Sudan plant was patrolled by the Sudanese military and produced no commercial medicines. Berger said it manufactured precursor chemicals that could be used to produce the nerve agent VX, a potent chemical weapon that is lethal to humans in quantities as small as on drop when placed on exposed skin.

No predictions

For all the apparent efficiency of the missile strikes - administration officials said Friday they inflicted ``moderate to heavy damage'' - there were no predictions that bin Laden's group, or any other terrorist group, had been incapacitated.

In the short run, the strikes might weaken bin Laden's capabilities, said MaArtin Goldstein, a professor of government and politics at Widener University and a former Pentagon analyst.

``But it's like giving a runner a sprained ankle,'' Goldstein said. ``It might knock him out of a couple of races, but in a month or two he will be back up and ready to go.''

Albright warned Americans that more attacks on them are possible. ``This is a very serious battle. . .'' she said. ``There may, in fact, be retaliatory actions.''

From the president on down, administration officials were careful to point out that America's war with terrorism was now in full swing, with unforeseen consequences.

``We have to deal over the long run,'' Albright said, ``with what is the very serious threat to our way of life at the end of this century and into the next one.''