Special Ed on the War on Terror #1 Abu Nidal

Regular readers of this blog need no introduction to the cast of characters in the war on terror. Yet we do attract the mindless liberals whose lack of intelligence has reduced them to slogans. In fact I get more coverage from people who claim not read this blog then readers.

I will introduce a new series to the running specialties of this blog. We have the Electronic Bar where we discuss blog issues and introduce new bloggers to our small
community. We have Forgotten People of the Mideast for those mindless liberals who
suffer from Palestiniomania. This is the mental illness where fake indigenous people become cause celebre and real ones are ignored. There is the familiar Spanking the Recidivist . The constant humiliation of the blogospere's most ignorant and bigoted
blogger who claims to have an IQ 167. To the critics of that segment , I let a lot of
material go. I only post the most flagrant flubs ,lies and bigotry and there is plenty of material.

I try to use leftist sources whenever possible. Thus the leftist crybabies are given no wiggle room. The information for Abu Nidal Organization comes from the Council of Foreign Affairs.

http://ctrterrorism.org/groups/abunidal_print.html
http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/abu.htm the Navy's more concise version

" Abu Nidal ,which means father of our struggle in Arabic is the alias of Sabri al-Banna who was born in 1937 into a landowning family in British Ruled Palestine. During the 1948 Arab- Israeli War , bannock family fled ending up in the West Bank. In the 1950's , he joined the Arab Nationalist Ba'ath Party, and in 1967 he got involved with the PLO. Abu Nidal represented al- Fatah the dominant faction of the PLO, 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 towards Palestinian Statehood. Abu Nidal who continued to advocate
Israel's destruction, accused the PLO of selling out and set up his own organization,
the Fatah Revolutionary Council signifying that he saw his group as the true air to Arafat's Fatah movement."

".... Among the groups best known attacks

The 1994 assassination of senior Jordanian diplomat Naeb Imran Maaytah in Beirut

The January 1991 assassination of Abu Iyyad, The PLO's second in command after Arafat and another PLO official in Tunnis.

A September 1986 shooting at the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey that killed 22/

The December 1985 attempted hijacking of a Pan Am flight in Karachi Pakistan in which 22 people died.

The December 1985 attacks on the El Al counters in Rome and Vienna which 18 people were killed and 111 injured

The June 1982 attempt to assassinate Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov in London which helped trigger Israel's invasion of London."

Has the Abu Nidal Organization received State Support
"Yes Iraq,Syria and Lybia have all harbored the group and given it training, logistical support and funding, often using the ANO as guns for hire . Abu Nidal began working with Iraqi intelligence while representing Fatah in Baghdad experts say. He formed his organization with Iraq's help and began by attacking the PLO and Syria. In 1983 Saddam Hussein expelled Abu Nidal and his group in an attempt to win US military support for Iraq's war with Iran. Once the war ended Iraq resumed its support for Abu Nidal.

After being expelled from Iraq the organization moved to Syria where it worked to undermine peace plans involving Jordan, PLO and Israel. In turn Syria expelled the ANO in 87, probably under US pressure to distance itself from terrorists at which point Lybia took it in. In 1999 in an attempt to rid itself of sanctions Lybia kicked out the ANO "

" It is now thought to be based in Iraq with cells in refugee camps in Lebanon. In 1999 Egypt and Lybia closed down the ANO offices in their countries."

The mystery of Abu Nidal's execution by Saddam is one of the areas most open to speculation.

From Laurie Mylroie The War against America pg 19

" The FRC became an instrument of Iraqi foreign policy.. In its first years ,the FRC's principal targets were Bagdad's Arab rivals. Only in the late 70's did Nidal begin to attack Israeli and Jewish targets. Like his mentors Abu Nidal is ruthless....

In 79 as Abu Nidal began to attack Jewish and Israeli targets,the FRC started to shift its focus from the Middle East to Western Europe where it established secret cells. The FRC controlled money for Scholarships for Palestinian students to attend schools in Europe. In return the students agreed to be sleepers for the organization. That is they would work for the FRC ,but they would not act immediately . They would establish themselves abroad . And when their services were needed, perhaps years later they would support whatever operation the FRC wanted to undertake".

This next part is confusing . El Sayeed Nossair was linked to the WTC 93 attack. The Mahmud Atta that is being discussed is not Mohammed Atta . Mahmud Atta is a Jordanian
member of FRC. If one needs more information Snopes has the full version. Journalists
get confused over this. My hunch is that some of the intelligence reports linking Mohamed Atta to Iraqi intelligence may refer to the Jordanian Mahmud Atta.If you are confused about two Attas you are in good company. The Australian,San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe all made the same mistake.

Http://snopes.com/rumors/ata.htm

" What is puzzling to us is why newspapers - much less the US authorities- should have been confused whether the two Attas were the same man ( especially since one was 14 years older....)

What we have here appears to be a case of mistaken identity. The mystery we can't solve is why the mistake was made in the first place."

Now when reading the next section Mahmood Atta is NOT Mohammed Atta.

Mylroie Page 20

" was there some link between Nossair and the FRC, or at least one of its members ? In April 1986 a Palestinian with US citizenship, along with two other Palestinians ,
both cousins attacked an Israeli bus on the West Bank . The driver was killed and a passenger seriously wounded. The two cousins were arrested but Mahmood Atta fled.

One of the two me arrested for the bus attack broke and confessed to Israeli authorities that Atta was a member of FRC. US investigators subsequently identified Atta as chief of Abu Nidal's operations in the US and Latin America.

Israeli and US authorities ,working together,monitored a meetin in April 1987 in Mexico City betwee Atta and four Palestinian - Americans from several Midwestern states. Atta instructed them on how to raise money in the US to be sent to Abu Nidal overseas and gave them a variety of other tasks. After the meeting Atta returned to Venezuela and the others to the Unites States.

Atta was seized in Venezuela and sent to the US to NY.He was to be extradite to Israel and he appealed the extradition order.On 08/31/90 a Court of Appeals rejected his final bid. The FRC warned of retaliation if he were extradited. Indeed five days before his 10/30/90 extradition the US State Dept issued a warning of a possible Abu Nidal attack in the Middle East.

Two days after Atta's extradition the FRC issued a statement denouncing the move claiming Atta was a political prisoner,while asserting that intl. Conventions prohibit the extradition of political prisoners. The FRC again threatened retaliation warning that it would hold the US responsible for Atta's safety.

Fourdays later Nossair shot Kahane. Among Nossairs possessions was found a list of five Jewish names scrawled in his address book.....Investigators concluded it was a hit list"

The next part on page 21 becomes unbeleivable. The FBI allowed the cell to opperate because it was gleaning information. However the daughter of a suspect was honor killed to prevent her from talking.The incedent was wiretapped by the FBI yet the other members of the cells were picked up only after WTC93 and it became too dangerous to have terrorists on the loose in the USA.

Mylroie explains that circumstantial evidence is often examined . Yet the FBI did not pursue the links between Mahmud Atta and the Kahane killing. The dominant theory at the time was El Sayeed Nossair. Yet as Mylroie pointed out the cast of characters
from WTC93 form their plot in the aftermath of the Kahane Killing.

Mylroie makes the case that Baghdad was involved in chapter 3. She shows the phone records of the conspirator Muhammed Salameh made to Iraq. The records were extensive
and the plot picks up after the FBI drops Egyptian double agent Emad Salem. Salem discussed bombing plots with Nossair in prison. This is the summation of the chapter.

" The origins of the WTC bombing 93 would thus seem to lie with El Sayeed Nossair in Attica in May and June of 92 and in that conspiracy that arose with Emad Salem's help. Baghdad seems to have learned of the plot through Salameh's call to his Uncle.And Baghdad apparently decided to help out. Abdul Rahmin Yasin was sent to Jordan to pick up a passport at the US embassy there.From the speed of its reaction it would seem that Iraqi intelligence was already planning such an operation. But the specific means to carry it out fell into their laps through Salameh's calls to his uncle."

Part two in the top. Bodansky on the mysterious Killing of Abu Nidal.