Exporting Violence

As 32 passengers for Trans World Airlines' flight 841 lined up to board their jet in Athens last week, an alert supervisor named Frixos Servetopoulos noticed that two men and a woman were carrying identical brown leather satchels. Feigning routine interest, Servetopoulos inspected one bag, then scurried to call the police. In short order, the three passengers were arrested. Inside their luggage was found an arsenal of pistols, hand grenades and bombs. The three were also carrying mimeographed statements announcing that the airliner was being skyjacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P.).

Police said the group, led by a stunning 22-year-old girl who used to teach school in Lebanon, had apparently intended to divert the Tel Aviv-to-New York flight to Tunisia. There the Boeing 707 was to have been evacuated and blown up in an attempt to persuade TWA to stop flying to Israel. Though the plot failed and the three now face possible life imprisonment under Greece's tough new anti-explosives law, it was one more example of how Arab terrorists are increasingly exporting violence to the airports and office buildings of Europe.

Airliners are particularly vulnerable. The P.F.L.P. promised a follow-up to the Athens attempt and issued a "final warning to tourists." It said: "Do not travel to Israel. Israel is under fire. Do not visit or come near Israeli embassies or offices of El Al Airlines anywhere in the world. Bombs may be waiting for you. Stay neutral. Be safe. Keep away."

In airports from Athens to Paris, planes belonging to Israel's El Al and to other "vulnerable carriers," including the oft-plagued TWA, are escorted to and from runways by official vehicles. The aircraft are frequently parked on remote aprons to reduce airport damage in case of explosion. Security guards ride aboard some Swissair and Olympic flights, and El Al has judo-trained guards armed with Beretta pistols on every flight. Airports almost everywhere in Europe have stepped up surveillance in passenger terminals. Last week Swiss inspectors uncovered a shipment of 47 Czechoslovak-made submachine guns in the baggage aboard a Beirut-bound Swissair plane and arrested two Arab suspects. But authorities despair of ever developing foolproof security. Says one: "If a man is dedicated enough to die for a cause, air-piracy laws and the threat of extradition are not likely to deter him, are they?"

More Bizarre. Many of the new precautions were introduced after last Feb. 18, when four Arab terrorists from Lebanon began shooting up an El Al jetliner as it taxied toward a takeoff in Zurich. Last week three of the attackers were sentenced in a Swiss court in Winterthur to twelve years' hard labor. A 23-year-old Israeli guard who leaped from the plane and gunned down the fourth was acquitted of murder. Terrorists have also taken aim at El Al on the ground. Israeli airline and shipping offices in London, Bonn and Athens have been bombed in recent months.

There is fear that more--and possibly even more bizarre--attacks may be in the offing. Two weeks ago, a Portuguese Jewish banker was seized and ransomed for $250,000 in Geneva by masked bandits who said it was for "our brethren in Winterthur." Last week British newspapers printed accounts of an Arab plot to kidnap wealthy British Jews for ransom. According to the reports, representatives of Al-Fatah hired members of the London underworld to drug the victims and smuggle them out of Britain to the Middle East. The list of proposed victims included Charles Clore, chairman of Selfridge's department store, and Lord Sieff, president of Marks & Spencer, a large retail chain. Fantastic? Perhaps, but many Britons recalled that last summer minor bomb explosions rocked both stores.

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