The Financing of Terror

Adams takes a close look at the financial resources of several terrorist groups including the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army and Italy's Red Brigade, and reaches startling conclusions. The PLO, he maintains, does not depend on Arab governments for its survival nor has it ever received funds from the Soviet Union. Operating on worldwide investments that provide an annual income of $1.25 billion, the PLO, according to the author, is the most financially successful terrorist group of all and well on the way toward fiscal independence. As to the Red Brigade, Adams describes their kidnap-and-ransom form of financing as developing into ""something resembling an art form.'' He argues that the U.S. raid on Libya was a serious mistake politically, militarily and morally, and that the supposed godfather of international terrorism, Muammar Khadafy has supplied almost no money to terrorist groups for at least five years. His proposal, that the way to reduce the power and influence of terrorist groups is to stop their economic growth, is convincing. (October 23)