The body of the Palestinian militant commander Abu Nidal was found some three days ago in his house at Baghdad. According to the Palestinian daily Alayam, Abu Nidal has apparently committed suicide. In recent years, Abu Nidal (65) was reportedly ailing.
In Baghdad, the deputy Palestinian ambassador, Nejah Abdul-Rahman, said he had no information regarding what he described as rumors of Abu Nidal's death. Abu Nidal spokesman Ghanem Saleh, speaking in Lebanon, said he had only heard the report from news media.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, Abu Nidal's brother said Monday he had no information to indicate his brother had died in Baghdad.
Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri Al Banna was born in 1937 into a landowning family in British-ruled Palestine. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Banna family fled, ending up in the West Bank. In the 1950s, he joined the Arab nationalist Ba’ath Party, and in 1967 he got involved with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Abu Nidal represented Fatah, led by Yassir Arafat—in Sudan and later Iraq. He split with the PLO in 1974 after it proposed the creation of a national authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a step toward Palestinian statehood.
Abu Nidal founded his new group, called Fatah Revolutionary Council (Fatah-RC). This group was founded in 1974. The breakup and the foundation of the new group was among others the result of the Iraqi regime's influence, which prompted Abu Nidal to launch independent operations to serve Iraqi interests. Fatah-RC has been considering itself since its foundation as the real Fatah, accusing the leaders of the original organization of treason.
Fatah-RC was considered the most active Palestinian group in the 1980s. It has demonstrated an ability to operate over wide areas in the Middle East, Asia, South America and Europe. It has carried out operations against targets of various Arab countries, more than any other Palestinian group. From the outset of the 1980s Fatah RC attacked also Jewish, Israeli and Western targets. Abu Nidal group attempted to assassinate Israeli ambassador in Britain, in June 1982.
His most famous attacks were twin assaults on the Israeli airline El Al's ticket counters at Rome and Vienna airports on Dec. 27, 1985. Eighteen people were killed and 120 wounded.
It practically ceased all military attacks in the 1990s.
Late last year, Jordan's state security court sentenced Abu Nidal to death for the murder of a Jordanian diplomat in 1994. He was sentenced in absentia to death by hanging. Four other accomplices were also sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Naeb Omran Ma'ayteh, a former first secretary at the Jordanian embassy in Beirut.
Abu Nidal was accused along with his four accomplices of "conspiracy to carry out a terrorist activity that led to the death of an individual as well as membership in an illegal group," the outlawed Fatah Revolutionary Council, a statement by the Jordanian court said.
The Abu Nidal group was accused of assassinating or kidnapping several Jordanian diplomats in the 1980s and early 1990s, especially in the Lebanese arena in the throes of the 1975-1990 civil war. In 1984, Jordan's ambassador in Bucharest, Azmi Mufti, was killed. The ambassador to India Mohammad Ali Khorma was wounded in a similar incident. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
