THE PRICE OF FANATICISM

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Dehumanization of the enemy is traditional among violent sects. And if the opponents are accepted as children of Satan, killing becomes that much easier. The very basis of their faith makes such killing not only legitimate but also mandatory. In the U.S. there are many shadowy groups lurking--covert militias, survivalists, religious and political cults--with agendas of destruction and a newfound taste for exotic weapons. "You don't hear much about them,'' says Hugh Stephens of the University of Houston, "but these people are antigovernment and fearful. They are running around with arms and training for the millennium.''

Symptoms of the trend have been visible for years. Back in 1972 an American fascist group called the Order of the Rising Sun was grabbed with 80 lbs. of typhoid bacteria cultures that the members planned to dump into the water supplies of Midwestern cities. In 1985 a group of neo-Nazis was arrested with 30 gal. of cyanide they intended to put into the water of New York City and Washington. Now, says Representative Glen Browder, an Alabama Democrat whose district is home to the Army's sole chemical-weapons training base, it appears "the psychological barrier'' against the mass use of chemical and biological agents has finally been passed in Tokyo. "It's just a matter of time before it occurs in the U.S.,'' he says.

Marvin Cetron, president of Forecasting International Ltd., a Virginia-based think tank, last year co-authored an exhaustive study of terrorism for the Pentagon." He thinks a chemical or biological attack on the U.S. is increasingly likely, "perhaps within the next five years.'' He also predicts that if Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Muslim cleric on trial in New York City, is found guilty on conspiracy charges, there will be "10 or 12 terrorist attacks on U.S. targets'' within a few weeks.

If that is so, what is the government doing to prepare? The Pentagon is studying how terrorists might try to spread chemical or biological agents in urban areas and hopes to develop techniques to thwart them. The FBI and CIA are boosting their spending on trying to find and penetrate the groups. and thus catch the plotters before they strike. But to do that, governments must have early and reliable intelligence, which can be almost impossible to obtain about groups that are tiny and disorganized or not yet suspect at all.

Not always, though; there are sometimes early warning signs. Religious cults with apocalyptic ideas frequently publish their violent preachings and often set up their compounds in remote areas. "This filters out the members who are not committed,'' says Bruce Bueno de Mesquita of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Because the groups are isolated, he says, "they don't fit in with the rural community, and they are easy to spot.'' Law-enforcement agencies also find that while violent cults may start out small and unknown, as they grow and acquire weapons, it becomes harder for them and their potential for violence to remain hidden. Locals become suspicious of them and the purchases they are making and alert the law.