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Abu Nidal: The Splinter Festers
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11148 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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3 / 1986 |
1,287 Words |
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Yonah Alexander
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The December 27, 1985, terrorist attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports have brought the Abu Nidal group of Palestinian revolutionaries to a new position of prominence in the world's attention.
Although the group remained out of the limelight for a period of time prior to this, Abu Nidal was not inactive. The State department reported connections between Abu Nidal and 60 terrorist attacks during the past eight years, 30 of these occurring since the beginning of 1984. Attacks took place in over 20 countries on three continents, illustrating the group's ability to operate where it wishes.
Abu Nidal's involvement in the airport attacks and the November 1985 hijacking of an Egypt Air passenger plane have renewed interest and concern about the group's activities.
The group was established in 1974. When Sabri al-Bana, known as Abu Nidal, broke away from Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization following disputes over ideology and methodology. Specifically, in 1974, Arafat limited PLO terrorist activity to Israel and the occupied territories. Nidal disagreed with the restriction, believing that any operations forwarding the Palestinian cause were warranted, regardless of their location.
Abu Nidal found an ally in Iraq who aided him in forming his organization, officially named the Fatah Revolutionary council (FRC), also known as Black June, and allowed him to operate from Iraqi soil. Syria also influenced the group beginning in the late 1970s and elements of organization relocated to Syria as Bagdhad began curtailing Abu Nidal activity originating from Iraq in the early 1980s. Abu Nidal remained under Iraqi expelled the group and closed all except one of its offices.
Most of the FRC's several hundred members currently reside in Syria and Lebanon. In addition, there are a number of cells throughout Western Europe and the rest of the Middle East. Libya has been increasingly involved with Abu Nidal since 1984; some sources indicate that the group's headquarters are now situated in Libya.
Agenda: No Compromises
Abu Nidal's objective is to liberate the Palestinian homeland using violence as its leading tool. The group seeks to sabotage all diplomatic efforts aimed at renewing negotiations between the Arab states and Israel, viewing such actions as capitulationist. Accordingly, Abu Nidal's attacks target those states and individuals that are partial to reconciliation attempts.
Arafat and the PLO are not immune themselves to the group's terrorist activities. Arafat has been the object of many assassination attempts, and in 1978, PLO representatives in Britain, Kuwait, and Paris were murdered. Four people died in an attack on the PLO's Istanbul office.
Abu Nidal was implicated not only in these events, but also in the 1984 assassination of former West Bank Mayor Fahd Qawasmeh, a Palestinian moderate, shortly after his election to the PLO Executive Council, and the 1985 murder of a Palestinian in Amman. For the part he played in these and other extremist acts, a PLO tribunal sentenced Abu Nidal to death in
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