Abu Nidal

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Person.png Abu Nidal  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
( Mossad,  assassin)
Abu Nidal.gif
BornSabri Khalil al-Banna
May 1937
 Jaffa,  Mandatory Palestine
Died16 August 2002 (Age 65)
 Baghdad,  Iraq
Nationality Palestinian
Founder ofAbu Nidal Organisation
PartyBa'ath Party,  (1955–1967)†,  Fatah,  (1967–1974)†,  Fatah Revolutionary Council,  (1974–2002)†
Terrorist known for his attacks creating a spectacularly bad image for the Palestinian cause. Was probably recruited by the Mossad, and for decades committed assassinations and false flag bombings on behalf of the Zionists.

Sabri Khalil al-Banna, known by his nom de guerre Abu Nidal, was the founder of Fatah: The Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter group more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO).[1] At the height of its militancy in the 1970s and 1980s, the ANO was widely regarded as the most ruthless of the Palestinian groups.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

Nidal was probably recruited by the Mossad, possibly during his 1968 stay in Sudan, and had for decades been used by the Israeli intelligence service to commit assassinations and false flag bombings.[8]

Abu Nidal Organisation

Full article: Rated 5/5 Abu Nidal Organisation

Abu Nidal ("father of struggle")[9] formed the ANO in October 1974 after a split from Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).[10] Acting as a freelance contractor, Abu Nidal is believed to have ordered attacks in 20 countries, killing over 300 and injuring over 650.[4][11][12] The group's operations included the Rome and Vienna airport attacks on 27 December 1985, when gunmen opened fire on passengers in simultaneous shootings at El Al ticket counters, killing 20. Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal's biographer, wrote of the shootings that their "random cruelty marked them as typical Abu Nidal operations".[13][14]

Lockerbie suspect

In October 2008, intelligence reports emerged suggesting that Lockerbie bombing suspect Abu Nidal was a US agent. Apparently drawn up for Saddam Hussein's security services, the reports said the Kuwaitis had asked Abu Nidal (aka Sabri Khalil al-Banna) to find out if al-Qaeda was present in Iraq. Scottish Labour MP Tam Dalyell claimed these reports, which referred to Abu Nidal's "collusion with both the American and Kuwaiti intelligence apparatuses in co-ordination with Egyptian intelligence", added weight to the theory that Lockerbie was a "tit-for-tat" attack for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes in July 1988, and that the US administration was complicit. Dalyell said the claims that Abu Nidal was working for the Americans would explain some of the mysteries surrounding the Lockerbie disaster for example:

  • The notice that went up at the American embassy in Moscow warning diplomats not to travel on Pan Am flights;
  • Senior South African figures being "hauled off" the plane;
  • Why prime minister Margaret Thatcher overruled her transport secretary, Cecil Parkinson, and stopped a public inquiry into the attack.

In a joint statement issued on 25 October 2008, Tam Dalyell and Professor Robert Black said:

"If the American public had known of a link with Abu Nidal, and had known that the US government knew enough to pull VIPs off the plane and let home-going students take their place, there would have been fury at a time of transition between the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr. The fact that the Iraqi government either executed Abu Nidal or forced him to commit suicide suggests they had discovered he was a US spy."[15]

Fortune

Nidal made a significant fortune by blackmail.There were no clear limits between the finances of his Organisation and his private accounts. He is estimated to have made $50 million in blackmail from the Saudis and other Gulf monarchies in the twelve years from 1976 until 1988. More money came from arms trading. Nidal fronted for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, buying weapons on the international market and shipping them to political factions Iraq wanted to support. Before the war, Nidal had about $120 million. BY the end of the war, that had grown to $400 million, selling East-bloc weapons to both Iran and Iraq. The money was salted away in banks in Switzerland, Austria and Spain. Funds he deposited with the BCCI were lost when the bank was closed in 1991.[16]

Death

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.[17][18] "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."[19]

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.[18]


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References

  1. ↑ Melman, Yossi (1987) [1986]. The Master Terrorist: The True Story Behind Abu Nidal. Sidgwick & Jackson, 213.
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ Kifner, John (14 September 1986). "On the bloody trail of Sabri al-Banna", The New York Times.
  4. ↑ a b Randal, Jonathan C. (10 June 1990). "Abu Nidal Battles Dissidents", The Washington Post.
  5. ↑ Partrick, Neil (2015) [1997]. "Abu Nidal", in Martha Crenshaw and John Pimlott (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Terrorism. London: Routledge, 326–327.
  6. ↑ "Mystery death of Abu Nidal, once the world's most wanted terrorist"
  7. ↑ "Abu Nidal Organisation (ANO)"
  8. ↑ See Abu Nidal Organisation, or Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal A Gun for Hire, Random House 1992
  9. ↑ 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".
  10. ↑ Seale, Patrick (1992). Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire. London: Hutchinson, 99.
  11. ↑ Hudson, Rex A. (September 1999). "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?", Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 97.
  12. ↑ "Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)", United States Department of State, June 2004.
  13. ↑ Seale 1992, 243.
  14. ↑ Suro, Roberto (13 February 1988). "Palestinian Gets 30 Years for Rome Airport Attack", The New York Times.
  15. ↑ "Was Lockerbie suspect working for US?"
  16. ↑ Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal A Gun for Hire, page 204
  17. ↑ Whitaker, Brian (22 August 2002). "Mystery of Abu Nidal's death deepens", The Guardian.
  18. ↑ a b Fisk, Robert (25 October 2008). "Abu Nidal, notorious Palestinian mercenary, 'was a US spy'", The Independent.
  19. ↑ Hirst, David (20 August 2002). "Abu Nidal", The Guardian.
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