Deadly legacy of Abu Nidal

Nidal as seen in a 1976 Israeli Army photograph

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The name Abu Nidal once struck a chill in Western hearts much the same as Osama bin Laden does today.

Nidal who is reported dead by a Palestinian newspaper, was the mastermind of terrorist "spectaculars" including the assassinations of diplomats, plane hijacks and massacre of El Al passengers at European airports.

Unusually he was not only an opponent of Israel plus the western states like the U.S. and Britain he saw as supporters of the Tel Aviv regime, but was also a sworn enemy of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Abu Nidal, meaning "Father of the Struggle," was the nom de guerre of Sabri Al Banna, the head of the Fatah Revolutionary Council (FRC) group that broke with the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1974, saying it was too moderate.

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Nidal, 65, who put on his death lists any Palestinian leaders who sought accommodation with Israel, led a dissident Palestinian militant organisation high on Washington's list of groups considered terrorist.

The FRC was blamed for attacks in 20 countries which left 900 people were killed or wounded, mostly during the 1970s and 1980s.

The chain-smoking ex-teacher was considered a true revolutionary by his allies but to his enemies was a megalomaniac dancing to the tune of Iraqi, Syrian and Libyan intelligence. Lebanon and Jordan issued death sentences, in absentia, against the high-profile fugitive.

Born in the Mediterranean port town of Jaffa in 1937 to wealthy Palestinian parents, Abu Nidal and his family were driven out to the West Bank during the 1948 Middle East War that accompanied Israel's creation.

Fuelled by a hatred of Israel and of Arabs willing to seek a political settlement with the Jewish state, Abu Nidal's group waged a bloody guerrilla war across three continents.

Assassination attempts

Nidal joined Fatah in early 1960, becoming PLO representative first in Khartoum and then Baghdad. Having split with Arafat, Abu Nidal became his sworn enemy, forming the FRC with other mainly ex-Fatah fighters opposed to peace with Israel.

Thus began a deadly campaign that saw the spawning of groups such as "Black June," named after Syria's June 1976 intervention in Lebanon.

It first focused on targets in Syria with the bombing of a Damascus hotel and assassination attempts on Syria's foreign minister, but then widened its sights to include the PLO.

"Black June" was blamed for killing PLO representatives in London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Brussels and Kuwait and for bombing a PLO office in Islamabad killing four people.

Nidal was sentenced to death in absentia by a Fatah military court. In 1982, his group tried to assassinate Israel's ambassador to Britain, setting off Israel's invasion of Lebanon to root out Palestinian guerrilla groups.

In 1984 a Jordanian airliner was attacked with a rocket while taking off from Athens. Assassinations included the British cultural attache in Athens, British Deputy High Commissioner in Bombay and a Jordanian diplomat in Ankara.

Nidal was accused of masterminding gun and grenade attacks on Israeli airline check-in desks at Rome and Vienna in December 1985 in which 19 died and more than 100 were wounded.

In September 1986, gunmen killed 22 people and wounded 100 in indiscriminate shooting during an attempt to hijack a Pan American jumbo jet at Karachi. The same month 22 worshippers at an Istanbul synagogue died in a raid.

In July 1988 masked gunmen killed nine people and wounded dozens on the Greek tourist ferry City of Poros soon after it left Piraeus for an inter-island cruise.

Like bin Laden running a network of training camps for terrorist volunteers, Nidal was sheltered by his friend Saddam Hussein in Iraq, then by Syria and Libya.

He was reported to run an international extortion racket running into millions of dollars, shaking down governments with threats of attacks. He has been accused of dealing in arms and of being a hit man for his various Arab backers.

His activities declined not just because of factionalised Arab revolutionary politics but Western diplomacy. In 1983 he was expelled from Iraq because of pressure from the U.S., Jordan and the United Arab Emirates over the Iran-Iraq war.

In 1987 he was expelled from Syria because of pressure from the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union to end Syrian backing for terrorism.

Then in 1999 Libya, under pressure over the Lockerbie bombing, was keen to see the back of Nidal and, now a sick man, he left via Egypt to medical treatment at a clinic in Baghdad.