Black September Organization
Black September Organization | |
---|---|
منظمة أيلول الأسود | |
Leaders |
|
Dates of operation | September 1970 – c. 1988 |
Active regions | Global, mostly concentrated in Europe and the Middle East |
Ideology | Palestinian nationalism Anti-Zionism |
Notable attacks | Munich massacre (see list of Black September attacks) |
Status | Inactive |
The Black September Organization (BSO) (
Origin
The group's name is derived from the
Initially, most of its members were dissidents within Fatah who had been close to Abu Ali Iyad, the commander of Fatah forces in northern Jordan who continued to fight the Jordanian Army after the PLO leadership withdrew. He was killed, allegedly through execution, by Jordanian forces on 23 July 1971.[2] It was alleged by them that the Jordanian Prime Minister at the time, Wasfi Tal, was personally responsible for his torture and death.[3]
Structure of the group
There is disagreement among historians, journalists, and primary sources about the nature of the BSO and the extent to which it was controlled by Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) faction controlled at the time by Yasser Arafat.
In his book Stateless, Salah Khalaf (
The denial described in Abu Iyad's claim was mutual: according to a 1972 article in the Jordanian newspaper
According to American journalist John K. Cooley, the BSO represented a "total break with the old operational and organizational methods of the fedayeen. Its members operated in air-tight cells of four or more men and women. Each cell's members were kept purposely ignorant of other cells. Leadership was exercised from outside by intermediaries and 'cut-offs' [sic]", though there was no centralized leadership.[5]
Cooley writes that many of the cells in Europe and around the world were made up of Palestinians and other Arabs who had lived in their countries of residence as students, teachers, businessmen, and diplomats for many years. Operating without a central leadership (see Leaderless resistance), it was a "true collegial direction".[5] The cell structure and the need-to-know operational philosophy protected the operatives by ensuring that the apprehension or surveillance of one cell would not affect the others. The structure offered plausible deniability to the Fatah leadership, which was careful to distance itself from Black September operations.
Fatah needed Black September, according to historian Benny Morris. He writes that there was a "problem of internal PLO or Fatah cohesion, with extremists constantly demanding greater militancy. The moderates apparently acquiesced in the creation of Black September in order to survive".[6] As a result of pressure from militants, writes Morris, a Fatah congress in Damascus in August–September 1971 agreed to establish Black September. The new organization was based on Fatah's existing special intelligence and security apparatus, and on the PLO offices and representatives in various European capitals, and from very early on, there was cooperation between Black September and the PFLP.[6]
The PLO closed Black September down in September 1973, on the anniversary it was created by the "political calculation that no more good would come of terrorism abroad" according to Morris.[7] In 1974 Arafat ordered the PLO to withdraw from acts of violence outside the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Munich massacre
The group was responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 Israeli Olympic athletes were murdered, nine of whom were first taken hostage, and the killing of a German police officer, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.
Following the attack, the Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister
Remarks in 2010 by Abu Daoud, the alleged mastermind of the Munich kidnappings, deny that any of the Palestinians assassinated by Mossad had any relation to the Munich operation,[9] despite the fact that the list includes two of the three surviving members of the kidnap squad arrested at the airport.[10]
Other attacks
Other actions attributed to Black September include:
- 28 November 1971: the assassination of Jordan's prime minister, Wasfi al-Tal, in retaliation for the expulsion of the PLO from Jordan in 1970–71;
- December 1971: the attempted assassination of Zaid Rifai, Jordan's ambassador to London and former chief of the Jordanian royal court;
- 6 February 1972: sabotage of a West German electrical installation and gas plants in Ravenstein and Ommen in the Netherlands and in Hamburg in West Germany;
- 8 May 1972: .
- September and October 1972: dozens of letter bombs were sent from Ami Shachori in Britain.[11]
- 23 January 1973: assassination of Mossad officer Baruch Cohen in Madrid.[12]
- 1 March 1973: Attack on the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan: 10 hostages were held at the Saudi Arabian embassy, five of them diplomats. The US ambassador, the US deputy ambassador, and the Belgian chargé d'affaires were murdered. The remaining hostages were released. A 1973 United States Department of State document, declassified in 2006, concluded: "The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasser Arafat."[13]
- 2 March 1973: 1973 New York bomb plot
- 5 August 1973: two Palestinian militants claiming affiliation with Black September Lufthansa Boeing 737 was hijacked from Rome in December 1973 to demand that the gunmen be freed from Greek custody.[14]
- 20 October 1981: Black September claimed responsibility for the 1981 Antwerp synagogue bombing in Belgium, which killed three and wounded 106 people.[15]
Letter bomb attacks and the assassination of Ami Shachori
Ami Shachori was the agricultural
Eight bombs were addressed to embassy staffers. Four were intercepted at a post office sorting room in
In Shachori's memory an annual memorial lecture on agriculture in London was established.[18]
See also
- 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and is thought to have been a cover organization for Hezbollah.
- Force 17 – Fatah's special operations unit, led by Ali Hassan Salameh and including Imad Mughniyeh.
- Black Sunday – 1977 John Frankenheimer film about a fictional Black September plot against the United States using the Goodyear Blimp fitted with a bomb to kill 80,000 people during the Super Bowl, based on the Thomas Harris novel of the same name.
- Munich (2005 film)
- Palestine Liberation Organization
- Palestinian Islamic Jihad
- Palestinian political violence
- Sabena Flight 571
- State-sponsored terrorism
References
- ^ Pierre Tristam. "Black September". About. Archived from the original on 6 February 2017. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ^ Quandt, Jabber and Lesch, p. 141.
- ^ Amos, 1980, p. 222.
- ^ "U.S. State Department Documents PLO-Black September Link (March 1973) – Jewish Virtual Library". Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ^ a b Cooley 1973[page needed]
- ^ a b Morris 2001, p. 379
- ^ Morris 2001, p. 383
- ^ Shalev, Noam (24 January 2006). "The hunt for Black September". BBC News. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ^ الموساد قلعة التجسس الإسرائيلية [Mossad the Israeli spying citadel] (in Arabic). Al Jazeera. 9 April 2010. Archived from the original on 17 June 2011. Retrieved 4 July 2010.
- ^ "Background & Overview: Munich Olympic Massacre – Jewish Virtual Library". Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ^ And Now, Mail-a-Death, Time, 2 October 1972. Accessed 5 September 2006.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
- ^ "The Seizure of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum" (PDF). U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
- Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. Archived from the originalon 30 September 2007. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
- ^ "Palestinian guerrillas claim synagogue bombing". UPI. 21 October 1981.
- ^ a b "BBC ON THIS DAY – 19 – 1972: Parcel bomb attack on Israeli embassy". BBC News. 19 September 1972. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ^ "Terrorism: And Now, Mail-a-Death". Time. 2 October 1972. Archived from the original on 14 October 2007. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ^ "All Day Science". Archived from the original on 29 April 2012. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
- ISBN 1-58574-739-4.
- ISBN 0-7146-2987-1.
- Jonas, G. Vengeance. Bantam Books, 1985.
- Khalaf, S. (Abu Iyad). Stateless.
- Morris, B.: Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001. Vintage Books, 2001.
- Oudeh, M. D. (Abu Daoud). Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist.
Further reading
- Amos, John (1980). Palestinian resistance: organization of a nationalist movement. Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-025094-7.
- Reeve, Simon. ISBN 1-55970-603-1.
- One day in September, Sony Pictures
- Katz, Samuel M.: Soldier Spies – Israeli Military Intelligence, Presidio Press, Novato, CA, 1992, ISBN 0-89141-357-X.
- "Munich 1972: When the Terror Began", Time, 25 August 2002
- Dahlke, Matthias, Der Anschlag auf Olympia 72, Meidenbauer, 2006, ISBN 3-89975-583-9(German).
- ISBN 0-679-40066-4. Retrieved 31 March 2011.