Abu Nidal
Abu Nidal | |
---|---|
أبو نضال | |
Born | Sabri Khalil al-Banna May 1937 |
Died | 16 August 2002 | (aged 65)
Resting place | Al-Karakh Islamic cemetery, Baghdad |
Nationality | Palestinian |
Organization | Fatah: The Revolutionary Council (known as the Abu Nidal Organization) |
Movement | Palestinian Rejectionist Front |
Sabri Khalil al-Banna (
Abu Nidal ("father of struggle")
Abu Nidal died after a shooting in his Baghdad apartment in August 2002. Palestinian sources believed he was killed on the orders of Saddam Hussein, while Iraqi officials insisted he had committed suicide during an interrogation.[12][13] "He was the patriot turned psychopath", David Hirst wrote in The Guardian on the news of his death. "He served only himself, only the warped personal drives that pushed him into hideous crime. He was the ultimate mercenary."[14]
Early life
Family, early education
Sabri Khalil al-Banna was born in May 1937 in
My father ... was the richest man in Palestine. He marketed about ten percent of all the citrus crops sent from Palestine to Europe - especially to England and Germany. He owned a summer house in
Marseilles, France, and another house in İskenderun, then in Syria and afterwards Turkey, and a number of houses in Palestine itself. Most of the time we lived in Jaffa. Our house had about twenty rooms, and we children would go down to swim in the sea. We also had stables with Arabian horses, and one of our homes in Ashkelon even had a large swimming pool. I think we must have been the only family in Palestine with a private swimming pool.[17]
The kibbutz named Ramat Hakovesh has to this day a tract of land known as "the al-Banna orchard". ...My brothers and I still preserve the documents showing our ownership of the property, even though we know full well that we and our children have no chance of getting it back.
— Muhammad al-Banna, brother of Abu Nidal[18]
Khalil al-Banna's wealth allowed him to take several wives. According to Sabri in an interview with
In 1944 or 1945, his father sent him to Collège des Frères de Jaffa, a French mission school, which he attended for one year.[18] When his father died in 1945, when Sabri was seven years old, the family turned his mother out of the house.[20] His brothers took him out of the mission school and enrolled him instead in a prestigious, private Muslim school in Jerusalem, now known as Umariya Elementary School, which he attended for about two years.[21]
1948 Palestine War
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations resolved to partition Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state. Fighting broke out immediately, and the disruption of the citrus-fruit business hit the family's income.[21] In Jaffa there were food shortages, truck bombs and an Irgun militia mortar bombardment.[22] Melman writes that the al-Banna family had had good relations with the Jewish community.[23] Abu Nidal's brother told Melman that their father had been a friend of Avraham Shapira, a founder of the Jewish defense organization, Hashomer: "He would visit [Shapira] in his home in Petah Tikva, or Shapira riding his horse would visit our home in Jaffa. I also remember how we visited Dr. Weizmann [later first president of Israel] in his home in Rehovot." But it was war, and the relationships did not help them.[23]
Just before Israeli troops took Jaffa in April 1948, the family fled to their house near Majdal, but Israeli troops arrived there too, and the family fled again. This time they went to the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, then under Egyptian control. Melman writes that the family spent nine months living in tents, depending on UNRWA for an allowance of oil, rice and potatoes.[24] The experience had later a powerful effect on Abu Nidal.[25]
Move to Nablus and Saudi Arabia
The al-Banna family's commercial experience, and the money they had managed to take with them, meant they could set themselves up in business again, Melman writes.
Personality
Abu Nidal was often in poor health, according to Seale, and tended to dress in zip-up jackets and old trousers, drinking whisky every night in his later years. He became, writes Seale, a "master of disguises and subterfuge, trusting no one, lonely and self-protective, [living] like a mole, hidden away from public view".[30] Acquaintances said that he was capable of hard work and had a good financial brain.[31] Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), the deputy chief of Fatah who was assassinated by the ANO in 1991, knew him well in the late 1960s when he took Abu Nidal under his wing.[32] He told Seale:
He had been recommended to me as a man of energy and enthusiasm, but he seemed shy when we met. It was only on further acquaintance that I noticed other traits. He was extremely good company, with a sharp tongue and an inclination to dismiss most of humanity as spies and traitors. I rather liked that! I discovered he was very ambitious, perhaps more than his abilities warranted, and also very excitable. He sometimes worked himself up into such a state that he lost all powers of reasoning.[32]
Seale suggests that Abu Nidal's childhood explained his personality, described as chaotic by Abu Iyad and as psychopathic by Issam Sartawi, the late Palestinian heart surgeon.[33][14] His siblings' scorn, the loss of his father, and his mother's removal from the family home when he was seven, then the loss of his home and status in the conflict with Israel, created a mental world of plots and counterplots, reflected in his tyrannical leadership of the ANO. Members' wives (it was an all-male group) were not allowed to befriend each another, and Abu Nidal's wife was expected to live in isolation without friends.[34]
Political life
Impex, Black September
In Saudi Arabia, Abu Nidal helped found a small group of young Palestinians who called themselves the Palestine Secret Organization. The activism cost him his job and home: Aramco fired him, and the Saudi government imprisoned then expelled him.[26] He returned to Nablus with his wife and family, and joined Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO. Working as an odd-job man, he was committed to Palestinian politics but was not particularly active, until Israel won the 1967 Six-Day War, capturing the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Melman writes that "the entrance of the Israel Defense Forces tanks into Nablus was a traumatic experience for him. The conquest aroused him to action."[35]
After moving to Amman, Jordan, he set up a trading company called Impex, which acted as a front for Fatah, serving as a meeting place and conduit for funds. This became a hallmark of Abu Nidal's career. Companies controlled by the ANO made him a rich man by engaging in legitimate business deals, while acting as cover for arms deals and mercenary activities.[32]
When Fatah asked him to choose a
First operation
Shortly after Black September, Abu Nidal began accusing the PLO, over his Voice of Palestine radio station in Iraq, of cowardice for having agreed to a ceasefire with Hussein.
In February 1973, Abu Daoud was arrested in Jordan for an attempt on King Hussein's life. This led to Abu Nidal's first operation, using the name Al-Iqab ("the Punishment"). On 5 September 1973, five gunmen entered the Saudi embassy in Paris, took 15 hostages and threatened to blow up the building if Abu Daoud was not released.
On the day of the attack, 56 heads of state were meeting in
Abu Nidal had carried out the operation without the permission of Fatah.
Expulsion from Fatah
Two months later, in November 1973 (just after the Yom Kippur War in October), the ANO hijacked KLM Flight 861, this time using the name Arab Nationalist Youth Organization. Fatah had been discussing convening a peace conference in Geneva; the hijacking was intended to warn them not to go ahead with it. In response, in March or July 1974, Arafat expelled Abu Nidal from Fatah.[45]
In October 1974 Abu Nidal formed the ANO, calling it Fatah: The Revolutionary Council.[46] In November that year a Fatah court sentenced him to death in absentia for the attempted assassination of Mahmoud Abbas.[47] Seale writes that it is unlikely that Abu Nidal had intended to kill Abbas, and just as unlikely that Fatah wanted to kill Abu Nidal. He was invited to Beirut to discuss the death sentence, and was allowed to leave again, but it was clear that he had become persona non-grata.[46] As a result, the Iraqis gave him Fatah's assets in Iraq, including a training camp, farm, newspaper, radio station, passports, overseas scholarships and $15 million worth of Chinese weapons. He also received Iraq's regular aid to the PLO: around $150,000 a month and a lump sum of $3–5 million.[48]
ANO
Nature of the organization
In addition to Fatah: The Revolutionary Council, the ANO called itself the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, Black June (for actions against Syria), Black September (for actions against Jordan), the Revolutionary Arab Brigades, the Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims, the Egyptian Revolution, Revolutionary Egypt, Al-Asifa ("the Storm," a name also used by Fatah), Al-Iqab ("the Punishment"), and the Arab Nationalist Youth Organization.[1]
The group had up to 500 members, chosen from young men in the
Seale writes that recruits were asked to write out their life stories, including names and addresses of family and friends, then sign a paper saying they agreed to execution if discovered to have intelligence connections. If suspected, they would be asked to rewrite the whole story, without discrepancies.[54] The ANO's newspaper Filastin al-Thawra regularly announced the execution of traitors.[52] Abu Nidal believed that the group had been penetrated by Israeli agents, and there was a sense that Israel may have used the ANO to undermine more moderate Palestinian groups. Terrorism experts regard the view that Abu Nidal himself was such an agent as "far-fetched".[5]
Committee for Revolutionary Justice
There were reports of purges throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Around 600 ANO members were killed in Lebanon and Libya, including 171 in one night in November 1987, when they were lined up, shot and thrown into a mass grave. Dozens were kidnapped in Syria and killed in the Badawi refugee camp. Most of the decisions to kill, Abu Daoud told Seale, were taken by Abu Nidal "in the middle of the night, after he [had] knocked back a whole bottle of whiskey."[55] The purges led to the defection from the ANO in 1989 of Atef Abu Bakr, head of the ANO's political directorate, who returned to Fatah.[56]
Members were routinely tortured by the "Committee for Revolutionary Justice" until they confessed to disloyalty. Seale writes that reports of torture included hanging a man naked, whipping him until he was unconscious, reviving him with cold water, then rubbing salt or chili powder into his wounds. A naked prisoner would be forced into a car tyre with his legs and backside in the air, then whipped, wounded, salted and revived with cold water. A member's testicles might be fried in oil, or melted plastic dripped onto his skin. Between interrogations, prisoners would be tied up in tiny cells. If the cells were full, Seale writes, they might be buried with a pipe in their mouths for air and water; if Abu Nidal wanted them dead, a bullet would be fired down the pipe instead.[57]
Intelligence Directorate
The Intelligence Directorate was formed in 1985 to oversee special operations. It had four subcommittees: the Committee for Special Missions, the Foreign Intelligence Committee, the Counterespionage Committee and the Lebanon Committee. Led by Abd al-Rahman Isa, the longest-serving member of the ANO—Seale writes that Isa was unshaven and shabby, but charming and persuasive—the directorate maintained 30–40 people overseas who looked after the ANO's arms caches in various countries. It trained staff, arranged passports and visas, and reviewed security at airports and seaports. Members were not allowed to visit each other at home, and no one outside the directorate was supposed to know who was a member.[58] Abu Nidal demoted Isa in 1987, believing he had become too close to other figures within the ANO. Always keen to punish members by humiliating them, he insisted that Isa remain in the Intelligence Directorate, where he had to work for his previous subordinates, who according to Seale were told to treat him with contempt.[59]
Committee for Special Missions
The job of the Committee for Special Missions was to choose targets.[60] It had started life as the Military Committee, headed by Naji Abu al-Fawaris, who had led the attack on Heinz Nittel, head of the Israel-Austria Friendship League, who was shot and killed in 1981.[61] In 1982 the committee changed its name to the Committee for Special Missions, headed by Dr. Ghassan al-Ali, who had been born in the West Bank and educated in England, where he obtained a BA and MA in chemistry and married a British woman (later divorced).[62] A former ANO member told Seale that Ali favoured "the most extreme and reckless operations."[60]
Operations and relationships
Shlomo Argov
On 3 June 1982, ANO operative Hussein Ghassan Said shot
Ariel Sharon, then Israel's defence minister, responded three days later by invading Lebanon, where the PLO was based, a reaction that Seale argues Abu Nidal had intended: the Israeli government had been preparing to invade and Abu Nidal provided a pretext.[65] Der Spiegel put it to him in October 1985 that the assassination of Argov, when he knew Israel wanted to attack the PLO in Lebanon, made him appear to be working for the Israelis, in the view of Yasser Arafat.[66] He replied:
What Arafat says about me doesn't bother me. Not only he, but also a whole list of
Arab and world politicians claim that I am an agent of the Zionists or the CIA. Others state that I am a mercenary of the French secret service and of the Soviet KGB. The latest rumor is that I am an agent of Khomeini. During a certain period they said we were spies for the Iraqi regime. Now they say that we are Syrian agents. ... Many psychologists and sociologists in the Soviet bloc tried to investigate this man Abu Nidal. They wanted to find a weak point in his character. The result was zero.[66]
Rome and Vienna
Abu Nidal's most infamous operation was the 1985 attack on the Rome and Vienna airports.
Austria and Italy had both been involved in trying to arrange peace talks. Sources close to Abu Nidal told Seale that Libyan intelligence had supplied the weapons. The damage to the PLO was enormous, according to
United States bombing of Libya
On 15 April 1986, the US launched bombing raids from British bases against
Hindawi affair
On 17 April 1986—the day the bodies of the teachers were found and McCarthy was kidnapped—Ann Marie Murphy, a pregnant Irish chambermaid, was discovered in
Pan Am Flight 73
On 5 September 1986, four ANO gunmen hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 at
Relationship with Gaddafi
Abu Nidal began to move his organization out of Syria to Libya in the summer of 1986,[83] arriving there in March 1987. In June that year the Syrian government expelled him, in part because of the Hindawi affair and Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking.[84] He repeatedly took credit during this period for operations in which he had no involvement, including the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing, 1985 Bradford City stadium fire, and 1986 assassination of Zafer al-Masri, the mayor of Nablus (killed by the PFLP, according to Seale). By publishing a congratulatory note in the ANO's magazine, he also implied that he had been behind the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, writes Seale.[85]
Abu Nidal and Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, allegedly became great friends, each holding what Marie Colvin and Sonya Murad called a "dangerous combination of an inferiority complex mixed with the belief that he was a man of great destiny". The relationship gave Abu Nidal a sponsor and Gaddafi a mercenary.[86] Seale reports that Libya brought out the worst in Abu Nidal. He would not allow even the most senior ANO members to socialize with each other; all meetings had to be reported to him. All passports had to be handed over. No one was allowed to travel without his permission. Ordinary members were not allowed to have telephones; senior members were allowed to make local calls only.[87] His members knew nothing about his daily life, including where he lived. If he wanted to entertain, Seale writes, he would take over the home of another member.[88]
According to Abu Bakr, speaking to Al Hayat in 2002, Abu Nidal said he was behind the bombing of
Banking with BCCI
In the late 1980s British intelligence learned that the ANO held accounts with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in London.[90] BCCI was closed in July 1991 by banking regulators in six countries after evidence emerged of widespread fraud.[91] Abu Nidal himself was said to have visited London using the name Shakar Farhan; a BCCI branch manager, who passed information about the ANO accounts to MI5, reportedly drove him around several stores in London without realizing who he was.[92] Abu Nidal was using a company called SAS International Trading and Investments in Warsaw as cover for arms deals.[93] The company's transactions included the purchase of riot guns, ostensibly for Syria, then when the British refused an export licence to Syria, for an African state; in fact, half the shipment went to the police in East Germany and half to Abu Nidal.[94]
Assassination of Abu Iyad
On 14 January 1991 in Tunis, the night before US forces moved into Kuwait, the ANO assassinated
Death
After Libyan intelligence operatives were charged with the Lockerbie bombing, Gaddafi tried to distance himself from terrorism. Abu Nidal was expelled from Libya in 1999,[97] and in 2002 he returned to Iraq. The Iraqi government later said he had entered the country using a fake Yemeni passport and false name.[98][99]
On 19 August 2002, the Palestinian newspaper
The Janes reported in 2002 that Iraqi intelligence had found classified documents in his home about a US attack on Iraq. When they raided the house, fighting broke out between Abu Nidal's men and Iraqi intelligence. In the midst of this, Abu Nidal rushed into his bedroom and was killed; Palestinian sources told Janes that he had been shot several times. Janes suggested Saddam Hussein had him killed because he feared Abu Nidal would act against him in the event of an American invasion.[99]
In 2008 Robert Fisk obtained a report written in September 2002, for Saddam Hussein's "presidency intelligence office," by Iraq's "Special Intelligence Unit M4". The report said that the Iraqis had been interrogating Abu Nidal in his home as a suspected spy for Kuwait and Egypt, and indirectly for the United States, and that he had been asked by the Kuwaitis to find links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Just before being moved to a more secure location, Abu Nidal asked to be allowed to change his clothing, went into his bedroom and shot himself, the report said. He was buried on 29 August 2002 in al-Karakh's Islamic cemetery in Baghdad, in a grave marked M7.[13]
See also
References
- ^ a b Melman, Yossi (1987) [1986]. The Master Terrorist: The True Story Behind Abu Nidal. Sidgwick & Jackson, 213.
- ^ Chamberlin, Paul Thomas (2012). The Global Offensive: The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 173.
- ^ Kifner, John (14 September 1986). "On the bloody trail of Sabri al-Banna", The New York Times.
- ^ a b Randal, Jonathan C. (10 June 1990). "Abu Nidal Battles Dissidents", The Washington Post.
- ^ a b Partrick, Neil (2015) [1997]. "Abu Nidal", in Martha Crenshaw and John Pimlott (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Terrorism. London: Routledge, 326–327.
- ^ a b AbuKhalil, As'ad; Fischbach, Michael R. (2005) [2000]. "Biography of Abu Nidal – Sabri al-Bana", in Philip Mattar (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Palestinians (11–13), 11. Melman 1987, 53, translates it as "father of the struggle".
- ^ Seale, Patrick (1992). Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire. London: Hutchinson, 99.
- ^ Hudson, Rex A. (September 1999). "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?", Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 97.
- ^ "Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)", United States Department of State, June 2004.
- ^ Seale 1992, 243.
- ^ a b Suro, Roberto (13 February 1988). "Palestinian Gets 30 Years for Rome Airport Attack", The New York Times.
- ^ Whitaker, Brian (22 August 2002). "Mystery of Abu Nidal's death deepens", The Guardian.
- ^ a b Fisk, Robert (25 October 2008). "Abu Nidal, notorious Palestinian mercenary, 'was a US spy'", The Independent.
- ^ a b Hirst, David (20 August 2002). "Abu Nidal", The Guardian.
- ^ Melman 1987, 45–46; for orange groves, Seale 1992, 57.
- ^ Melman 1987, 45–46; for the military court, image between 122 and 123.
- ^ Melman 1987, 45.
- ^ a b Melman 1987, 47.
- ^ a b Melman 1987, 46.
- ^ a b Seale 1992, 58.
- ^ a b Melman 1987, 48.
- ^ Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 212–213.
- ^ a b Melman 1987, 48–49.
- ^ a b Melman 1987, 49.
- ^ Melman 1987, 49; Seale 1992, 59.
- ^ a b Hudson 1999, 100.
- ^ Melman 1987, 50.
- ^ Melman 1987, 50; Seale 1992, 64.
- ^ Melman 1987, 51.
- ^ Seale 1992, 56.
- ^ Seale 1992, 57.
- ^ a b c Seale 1992, 69.
- ^ Melman 1987, 3, 51; Seale 1992, 57.
- ^ Seale 1992, 58–59.
- ^ Melman 1986, 52.
- ^ Melman 1987, 513; Seale 1992, 70.
- ^ a b Seale 1992, 78.
- ^ Seale 1992, 85–87.
- ^ Melman 1987, 69; Seale 1992, 92.
- ^ Kamm, Henry (6 September 1973). "Gunmen Hold 15 Hostages In Saudi Embassy in Paris", The New York Times.
- ^ a b Seale 1992, 91.
- ^ Kamm, Henry (7 September 1973). "Commandos leave Embassy in Paris", The New York Times.
- ^ a b Seale 1992, 92.
- ^ Melman 1987, 69.
- ^ Melman 1987, 70; Seale 1992, 97–98 (Melman writes that it was March 1974, Seale that it was July).
- ^ a b Seale 1992, 99.
- ^ Seale 1992, 98.
- ^ Seale 1992, 100.
- ^ Seale 1992, 6.
- Harvey W. Kushner, "Abu Nidal Organization," in Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Sage Publications, 2002, 3.
- ^ Kushner 2002, 3.
- ^ a b AbuKhalil and Fischbach 2005, 12.
- ^ Seale 1992, 21.
- ^ Seale 1992, 7, 13–18.
- ^ Seale 1992, 287–289.
- ^ Seale 1992, 307, 310.
- ^ Seale 1992, 286–287.
- ^ Seale 1992, 185–187.
- ^ Seale 1992, 188.
- ^ a b Seale 1992, 183.
- ^ Seale 1992, 186.
- ^ Seale 1992, 182.
- ^ Joffe, Lawrence (25 February 2003). "Shlomo Argov", The Guardian.
- ^ Cobban, Helena (1984). The Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Cambridge University Press, 120.
- ^ Seale 1992, 223–224.
- ^ a b Melman 1987, 120.
- ^ Seale 1992, 246.
- ^ "Gunmen kill 16 at two European airports", BBC News, 27 December 1985.
- ^ Seale 1992, 244.
- ^ Seale 1992, 245.
- ^ "US launches air strikes on Libya", BBC News, 15 April 1986.
- ^ Malinarich, Natalie (13 November 2001). "The Berlin Disco Bombing", BBC News.
- ^ Melman 1986, 162.
- ^ Pidd, Helen (23 November 2009). "Remains of British journalist Alec Collett found in Lebanon", The Guardian.
- ^ Kushner 2002, 204.
- ^ "1986: British journalist McCarthy kidnapped", BBC On This Day, 17 April.
- ^ Melman 1986, 170–174.
- ^ Melman 1986, 171.
- ^ Seale 1992, 248.
- ^ Melman 1987, 190; Seale 1992, 252–254.
- ^ Rajghatta, Chidanand (17 January 2010). "24 yrs after Pan Am hijack, Neerja Bhanot killer falls to drone", The Times of India.
- ^ Swain, Jon (28 March 2004). "Revealed: Gaddafi's air massacre plot", The Times.
- ^ a b Seale 1992, 255.
- ^ Seale 1992, 257.
- ^ Seale 1992, 254.
- ^ a b Colvin, Marie and Murad, Sonya (25 August 2002). "Executed," The Sunday Times.
- ^ Seale 1992, 258–259.
- ^ Seale 1992, 258–260.
- ^ "Abu Nidal 'behind Lockerbie bombing'", BBC News, 23 August 2002.
- ^ Walsh, Conal (18 January 2004). "What spooks told Old Lady about BCCI", The Observer.
- ^ Fritz, Sarah; Bates, James (11 July 1991). "BCCI Case May Be History's Biggest Bank Fraud Scandal", Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Adams, James; Frantz, Douglas (1992). A Full Service Bank. Simon and Schuster, 90.
- ^ Adams and Frantz 1992, 136.
- ^ Adams and Frantz 1992, 91.
- ^ Seale 1992, 32, 34, 312.
- ^ Seale 1992, 312–313.
- ^ St John, Ronald Bruce (2011). Libya and the United States: Two Centuries of Strife, University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 187.
- ^ a b Arraf, Jane (21 August 2002). "Iraq details terror leader's death", CNN.
- ^ a b Najib, Mohammed (23 August 2002). "Abu Nidal murder trail leads directly to Iraqi regime", Jane's Information Group.
External links
- Incidents attributed to the Abu Nidal Organization, Global Terrorism Database.