Warnings Said to Curb Bombings : Terrorism: Governments are told to watch for athletic-looking young Arabs posing as businessmen.

MANILA —  Governments around the world were warned by U.S. officials in recent days to watch for athletic-looking Arab males posing as businessmen, aged 26 to 34, working in pairs and carrying Samsonite attache cases containing explosive devices.

Authorities also are being alerted that Iraqi terrorists may be using passports from the former East Germany and also Mauritania, Egypt, Syria and Kuwait.

The warnings, recounted Wednesday by Philippine Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo and confirmed by officials in Washington, are part of a stepped-up counterterrorism effort that is credited with helping hamper international attacks that have been repeatedly urged by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The security alerts have been combined in the last two weeks with the expulsion or deportation from 13 countries of more than 200 Iraqi diplomats, intelligence agents and suspected terrorists and sympathizers.

“It’s slowed them down, no question” one official said of terrorists. “But it hasn’t stopped them.”

Domingo said the warnings noted that “elite groups” of Iraqis have been trained in espionage and terrorism and are on “highly sensitive” missions in countries where American facilities are located.

She said an advisory received Wednesday warned that Iraqi officials took an unknown number of Egyptian and Syrian passports from overseas workers after the invasion of Kuwait last Aug. 2 and that at least 20,000 Kuwaiti passports also disappeared.

“We’ve also been told to watch for 50 Mauritanian passports sold to Iraq,” Domingo said in an interview.

She said an earlier advisory warned that an unknown number of East German passports, valid until 1995, have been “sold as souvenirs” since Germany’s reunification last year and could be used by terrorists.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration warned last week that 140 Ethiopian passports have been stolen and are in the hands of a Middle East terrorist group.

The government of Ethiopia said Wednesday that it has conducted an extensive investigation and determined that none of its passports was stolen. The FAA, however, has not withdrawn the warning about the Ethiopian passports.

Western officials believe that Iraq has tried to transform into a terrorist ring its overseas intelligence network, initially set up to obtain high technology and sophisticated weapons systems during Baghdad’s 1980-88 war with Iran.

Since the Gulf War began Jan. 17, countries that have expelled or deported suspect Iraqis include Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Britain and the United States, officials here said.

The Iraqi departures have been slowed in some cases, however, because a growing number of airlines and countries are unwilling to accept them. Hong Kong announced this week that Iraqis must have transit visas, in addition to normal entry visa requirements, even to change planes.

When Thai security officials tried to deport two Iraqis and a Jordanian as suspected terrorists this week, the three were refused passage on a Malaysian Airlines plane, according to the Bangkok Post. They then boarded a Thai International flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but were denied entry and had to be flown back to Bangkok, where they remain in custody.

Thailand has expelled two Iraqi diplomats and has refused to give haven to two others who had been expelled from Manila and Canberra, Australia.

A high-security alert was extended indefinitely in Bangkok after intelligence reports that the Iraqi Embassy used its diplomatic cover to smuggle arms and explosives into the country. Heavily armed Thai troops have been deployed in the U.S., British, Australian and Israeli embassies since Jan. 19. Police and other troops guard 80 other potential terrorist targets, including hotels and nightclubs in Bangkok and the northern city of Chiang Mai. Both cities are popular tourist stops.

A U.S. Embassy statement Monday said the embassy “continues to receive reports of possible terrorist actions against U.S. interests and citizens in Thailand. This situation may persist into the foreseeable future.”

In neighboring Malaysia, officials said they ordered 24-hour police patrols along the 375-mile-long border after Thai police warned that suspected Arab terrorists might try to slip across.

So far, at least 33 bombings and other attacks have been reported around the globe, although most apparently have been carried out by local groups claiming support for Iraq. Only one attack, a botched bombing of a U.S. library in Manila on Jan. 19, was clearly carried out by Iraqis and conclusively linked to the Iraqi Embassy.

“We’re still waiting for something else to happen,” another Western official in Manila said. “The real enemy now is just being complacent.”

Scores of international schools, embassies, overseas banks, airline offices and United Nations offices have received bomb threats ostensibly linked to the war.

Partly in response, the U.S. government this week urged families of American diplomats and employees to leave India, where Washington maintains an embassy in New Delhi and consulates in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. The United States will pay for the “voluntary departures,” officials said.

The U.S. State Department acknowledged Tuesday that nonaligned India has let U.S. military aircraft refuel and fly over its territory. Press reports in India have said at least 39 U.S. C-141 transport planes en route to the war have landed to refuel in Bombay and Madras. Nine people were reported killed in anti-American protests in India last weekend.

The United States has previously urged “voluntary departure” of official U.S. dependents from Pakistan, Sudan and Israel.

There were these other daily developments on the terrorist front:

* Leftist Greek guerrillas claimed responsibility for a wave of bomb and rocket attacks in Athens to fight “the barbarous Western assault” on Iraq. The November 17 group said in a letter to an Athens newspaper that has it staged all six bomb and rocket attacks on U.S., British and French targets since the Gulf War began.

* Bombs rocked U.S. and other Western targets in two Turkish cities. They caused damage but no injuries. The Turkish underground organization Dev Sol, or Revolutionary Left, took responsibility for the explosions in Istanbul and Ankara, saying it is protesting Turkey’s participation in the anti-Iraq alliance.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington contributed to this report.