WASHINGTON — Last year, as Iran was shipping weapons to Bosnia and Croatia with American acquiescence, U.S. officials in the Croatian capital of Zagreb suddenly became aware of a harrowing threat: Iranian-sponsored terrorists were stalking them in apparent preparation for an attack.
Hezbollah militants from Lebanon, trained and funded by Iran, had arrived in the Croatian capital and were watching American embassy personnel and their families, U.S. officials said. Some carried video cameras and taped the Americans as they came and went.
Central Intelligence Agency and State Department officials tightened the embassy's security, fearing that an attack was imminent. "The terrorist threat went right up the scale to the levels you would see in preparation for an attack," said one official.
The suspected terrorists, officials said later, were members of the Iranian-backed organization responsible for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks and U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
No terrorist attack was launched, however. Other events intervened. Rebel Serb forces shelled Zagreb with artillery in May 1995, prompting the evacuation of American dependents and nonessential embassy personnel. As a result, the available targets for terrorists were fewer in number and better protected.
Nevertheless, the terrorists and their apparent plots were seen by some U.S. and Croatian officials as harbingers of a more threatening Iranian presence in the Balkan state--a presence that grew significantly once Croatia, with the United States' knowledge, began collaborating with Tehran to ship weapons to the Bosnian Muslims.
Since the disclosure of the secret U.S. policy shift to allow arms to flow to the Bosnian Muslims, in spite of a United Nations arms embargo, debate has focused on the wisdom of giving the Iranian regime greater influence in Bosnia.
However, senior U.S. officials familiar with the situation in Croatia said that the implications in that country are just as troubling.
"The terrorist threat faced by American personnel grew exponentially in the months following the green light," said one senior U.S. official. The problems continue as the U.S. tries now to uproot an Iranian presence seen as a danger to the U.S. peacekeepers in the region and to the effort to contain the spread of terrorism.
Iranian Influence
