A NEAR MISS, THIS TIME

By Bruce W. Nelan

The team of assassins launched the attack with professional precision. At 8:15 last Monday morning, in a rented house overlooking Addis Ababa's main airport, one of them peered through an opening in the black cloth that covered the window. With binoculars he watched Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi shake hands with his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, welcoming him to a summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity. As Mubarak's motorcade pulled out of the airport and onto the tree-lined boulevard leading into the Ethiopian capital, the lookout flashed a signal by radio to the hit squad sitting in three vehicles parked along a small side street. The cars, led by a silver Volvo sedan, began to roll slowly toward the intersection. Then, as Mubarak's four-car motorcade came into sight, one pulled out onto the boulevard and blocked it.

Mubarak's armored limousine, third in the convoy, was about 70 m away when two or three gunmen sprang into the street and opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles. They killed two policemen on duty along the boulevard and then blazed away at the approaching cars. Bullets thumped repeatedly into the presidential limousine but did not penetrate it. As Mubarak's driver screeched to a halt and started turning around, two Ethiopian and several Egyptian security men opened fire with rifles and pistols, downing two of the attackers. The others sped away.

Though it was a near miss, Mubarak was safe again. He had survived an actual attack this time; plots to kill him in 1992 and '93 were broken up before the conspirators could take action. This was close enough to make Egyptians wonder what would happen if killers one day succeeded. They are likely to keep trying, for Mubarak is a strong ally of the U.S. and a key strategist in the effort to establish peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. That objective is anathema to many Islamic groups.

After flying directly back to Cairo, Mubarak plunged into a series of public appearances to prove he was unhurt. The attack was "nothing," he said. The car was armored, and "I was cool all the time." As it turned out, he may not have been as secure as he thought. Ethiopian police later found the vehicles abandoned by the assassins who got away. The two sedans and a four-wheel-drive vehicle contained an assortment of weapons, including a trunkful of explosives and two rocket-propelled grenades that could have destroyed Mubarak's limousine if they had been used. Quick and accurate fire from the security men may have cut the attack short and saved the Egyptian President's life.

At a rally in Cairo to celebrate his safe return, Mubarak charged that the assassination attempt was sponsored by extremist Muslims in neighboring Sudan, where Lieut. General Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir is President but Islamic cleric Hassan al-Turabi is considered the power behind the government. The attack, said Mubarak, was organized by either "the Sudanese government, and I think that is unlikely, or by Turabi and his group." Mubarak has often accused the Sudanese of supporting the bloody three-year insurgency by radical Egyptian Muslims who are trying to overthrow the secular government.

Al-Turabi went on Sudanese television to say, "We have no connection with this incident," and al-Bashir, at the summit in Addis Ababa, also denied any involvement. Nevertheless, Mubarak chose to make an issue of it. "The conspiracy is clear," he said, "and we all know where its focus is." Claiming that Sudanese mobs had attacked Egyptians in Khartoum, Mubarak sent police to drive Sudanese border guards from an outpost in the southern Shalatin-Halaib area. On Saturday Ethiopian radio announced that security forces killed three people suspected in the assassination attempt.

Officials in Washington believe it is more likely that the culprits were backed by Egypt's own Muslim extremist organizations, the Islamic Group and Jihad, or Holy War. "It is standard practice for the Egyptians to try to blame such attacks on foreigners," says Nicholas Veliotes, a former U.S. ambassador to Cairo. "That also deflects attention from Egypt's continuing domestic problems."

Those problems are all too abundant. The economy seems permanently stalled, and unemployment is endemic. The Mubarak government is widely viewed as corrupt and is either unable or unwilling to press ahead with reforms that could produce faster economic growth and improved living standards. Many Egyptians are pondering the slogan that is spray-painted on walls in urban and rural towns alike: islam is the solution.

If radical Islam is the solution, it has not helped the country much so far. In three years of guerrilla attacks on police and foreign visitors, Islamists have undermined the country's $3 billion-a-year tourist industry and made outside investors worry about Egypt's long-term stability. Mubarak has responded with harsh measures that have choked off most radical action. But the crackdown has also exposed the government to accusations of torture, summary execution, intimidation of the press and other human-rights violations.

The crackdown has almost put the Muslim radicals out of business on Egyptian soil. "Nearly all the leadership of the Islamic groups have either been killed or are on the run or are in prison," says Montasser el-Zayat, an Egyptian lawyer for the Islamic Group. "The remainder are not very effective." Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a political analyst and chairman of a research center, agrees that there is no prospect of an Islamic takeover. "The Egyptian state is in no danger of falling," he says. "It may be clumsy, but it is strong."

The question now is whether repression alone can neutralize Islamic fundamentalism over the long run. Mubarak tends to include all Islamists in the category of extremism, even the Muslim Brotherhood, which has publicly forsworn the use of force. Critics both inside and outside Egypt suggest that Mubarak could take the steam out of the fundamentalist movement by allowing some political participation by nonviolent Muslim activists.

Mubarak "must establish a legal channel of dialogue with the millions of Egyptians who support the Islamic movements," says Abdel Halim Mandour, another Egyptian lawyer for Islamists. Government spokesman Nabil Osman is not encouraging. "You cannot have a dialogue with terrorists," he says. He confirms what most Egyptians had expected -- that the Addis Ababa attack will bring even more harsh government measures to root out Islamists-saying, "There will be no letup."

Whether or not they support further toughness, all those who worry about Egypt's stability hope Mubarak's near encounter with death will push him to make one important change to ensure a smooth transition of power. He is a sturdy 67, but assassins killed his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, and they are trying to kill him. He has never chosen a successor, and many believe the country would be well served if he would name a Vice President soon.

--Reported by Dean Fischer/Washington, Lara Marlowe/Cairo and Andrew Purvis/Addis Ababa

With reporting by DEAN FISCHER/WASHINGTON, LARA MARLOWE/CAIRO AND ANDREW PURVIS/ADDIS ABABA