Introduction for Discussion by the Chairman of the Polish Group on June 29, 1990 (Counter-terrorism Team)

TOP SECRET;

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INTRODUCTION

for discussion by the chairman of the Polish group on June 29,1990 (counter-terrorism team)

I would like to express my sincere satisfaction with the fact that I have the honor to attend a second meeting with representatives of the US security services, here in Warsaw, devoted to the problem of combating the threat of international terrorism.

I have pleasant recollections of our meeting held in Lisbon in May of this year. This was the first important milestone toward establishing cooperation on the political and operational fight against international terrorism.

The initial exchange of views and information at that time led to a common conclusion as to the desirability and necessity of co-operation of our services in this field.

Today's next meeting is an expression of this, and I am convinced that it will help to make cooperation between our specialized services more concrete.

I would like to thank you very warmly once again for the very interesting materials that the US delegation gave us at the time in Lisbon. It was valuable information for us and helped develop a new structure for our intelligence service, among others.

I would also like to thank you very much once again for the hospitality, the pleasant, factual and constructive climate that the US delegation created during this meeting, being its host and, most importantly, its initiator.

I would also like to refer to the question of the visit to Warsaw by the delegation from the US Department of State in May this year, which held talks on the political aspects of combating terrorism, the threats and the possibilities for bilateral cooperation in this area.

The Polish delegation was very pleased with the results of these talks. I would like to emphasize that valuable information material was provided to us in a document prepared by the US Department of State, "Patterns of Global Terrorism 1989".

We have used it for information purposes.

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As regards our state of knowledge of the issue of international terrorism and our commitment to combating the existing threat , I would like to make two comments:

a/ so far Poland has not been directly threatened by acts of terror by Islamic terrorism. This year, a situation arose which made it real.

First of all, our facilities abroad are at risk, and to a lesser or minimal extent our domestic facilities are at risk. Until last year, we had a rather passive diagnosis of the terror issue, with the slim forces, multi-person teams existing in the framework of the national counter-intelligence and the foreign counter-intelligence services. Unfortunately, our understanding of the subject is neither deep nor up-to-date. Ii includes data from our own sources and from other countries' services.

The current structures dealing with terrorism are of a provisional nature.

The reorganization plans to set up a special dedicated operational unit to deal with this issue in a comprehensive manner, with active surveillance and coordination of the activities of the services and institutions concerned. We are trying to build on the experience of other services in this area. We have the cadres appropriately trained for the operational tasks. However, we recognize that our experience is not too rich.

b/ since April this year, we have taken possible measures to effectively ensure the transfer of Jewish Soviet citizens to Israel  and to protect our facilities especially abroad from possible terrorist attacks. In this context, it is particularly important to ensure that national airports are properly secured. An important problem is the issue of specialist equipment, which we unfortunately lack. The operational diagnosis of Arab communities in Poland is being carried out in a relatively active manner.

We are consulting with representatives of Israel's security services in this regard, as well as with representatives of the relevant services of the USSR.

We have significant difficulties in providing security for particularly vulnerable locations, in the Middle East and North Africa (inadequate technical and physical protection).