Chain of Terror

The two-alarm fire broke out in the second-floor office of a Washington public relations firm, spreading upward through the five-story building and causing $500,000 worth of damage. Arab Americans quickly pointed to a disturbing coincidence: two floors above, the offices of the American-Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee were also badly damaged, the latest in a series of violent actions affecting the organization. The Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is investigating the blaze. Commented one bureau spokesman: "Given the other attacks against the ADC and related Arab Americans, we are very concerned that it might have been directed against them."

Former South Dakota Senator James Abourezk, founder and head of the ADC, agrees. The fire, he said last week, "must surely be linked" to two recent bombings aimed at his group. In August two Boston police officers were badly injured while trying to defuse a bomb found outside the ADC's office. After the Achille Lauro hijacking in October, the ADC's West Coast director Alex Odeh, 41, was fatally wounded after he appeared on Cable News Network saying it was time for Americans to "understand the Palestinian side of the story." When he opened the door to the organization's office in Santa Ana, Calif., the following morning, he triggered an explosion that killed him.

Even before Abourezk registered his complaint, the FBI had begun to look for a wider connection. Characterizing the attack that killed Odeh as "terrorist," an FBI spokesman said that the Jewish Defense League, a militant pro-Israel organization, is "the possible responsible group" for Odeh's assassination as well as two separate bombings of suspected Nazis last summer. One of those blasts proved fatal: in Paterson, N.J., Tscherin Soobzokov, 61, a veteran of the Nazi Waffen SS, was injured by a bomb that detonated when he opened his front door. He died a month later. The Los Angeles Times has reported that the bombs used in all three cases were of similar design. The JDL has denied involvement in the attacks.

Abourezk met with FBI Director William Webster late last week and turned over information pointing to suspects other than the JDL, although the former Senator says he has no firm idea who is behind the attacks. At the same time, his complaints about federal indifference have stirred further action: the Justice Department's civil rights division announced last week it would investigate the attacks on the American-Arab group. Abourezk is now satisfied that the Government has committed adequate resources to the probe. Said he: "We were feeling goddamned alone out here."