The New York Times · 15 March 1986

CP-1986-015

F.B.I. Chief Doubts Anti-Arab Terrorists Caused Capital Fire

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WASHINGTON, March 14 — A fire that destroyed a large portion of a Washington office building where the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee had its headquarters was apparently not aimed at the committee, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said today. William H.

Webster, Director of the bureau, said there appeared to be “no relationship” between the fire last December and terrorists opposed to the group. Mr. Webster, testifying before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, seemed to suggest that the fire might have been aimed at another tenant in the building, although he would not provide details.

The fire began in the offices of a public relations concern on a lower floor. Some law-enforcement officials initially speculated that the fire, which seriously damaged the offices of the antidiscrimination committee, might have been one of a number of recent attacks on Arab-American groups.

The committee’s West Coast director, Alex Odeh, was killed last October when a bomb exploded at the group’s offices in Santa Ana, Calif. James Abourezk, the committee’s national chairman, said he accepted the F.B.I. analysis of the incident and expressed “great relief” that the group’s offices had not been the target. At the hearing, Mr.

Webster said the bureau was continuing to study whether the rights of Arab Americans had been violated in recent incidents. Last December, he warned that Arab Americans had entered a “zone of danger” and were the targets of violence by a group seeking to harm “enemies of Israel.”

He has not provided a detailed description of the group purportedly behind the incidents.

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