Abu Nidal Organization

aka Arab Revolutionary Brigade; Black June; Black September; Fatah Revolutionary Council

The Palestinian terrorist group Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) was the best-organized, best-funded, and most active terrorist network of the late 1970s and 1980s.

Sabri al-Banna, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Nidal (meaning “Father of Struggle”), founded the ANO in 1974. Previously a high-ranking member of Yasir Arafat's Fatah, a part of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), al-Banna broke with that group in 1974 over what he perceived to be its abandonment of armed struggle for Palestinian liberation in favor of political settlement. Both al-Banna and the ANO have been influenced by the ideology of the Ba'th party, which called for the unification of the Arab peoples into a single state. The ANO saw the elimination of Israel as a necessary precursor to Arab unity and hoped that fighting a common enemy (the Israelis) would help to forge such unity. The ANO reviled Arafat and other pro-Western Arab leaders who, at the time, were willing to support the continued existence of Israel in exchange for an independent Palestine. Accordingly, the ANO has targeted moderate Arabs as frequently as it has Israelis.

While working as a recruiter for Al Fatah, al-Banna was based in Baghdad, Iraq, a Ba'th stronghold run by the dictator Saddam Hussein. Following al-Banna's 1974 defection, Hussein helped him to organize the ANO and provided him with funds in exchange for the use of the ANO's services, primarily against Syrian targets. (The Syrian division of the Ba'th had been feuding with the Iraqi Ba'th for years.)

The ANO as created by al-Banna would emerge as one of the most extensive and effective terrorist networks of the 1980s. Front organizations for the ANO were established in almost every Arab nation to attract recruits; these recruits were then sent to training camps in the ANO's host country (at various times Iraq, Syria, and Libya). Once proficient in the necessary terrorist skills—weapons training, explosives, intelligence, and covert operations—members joined a small four- or five-person cell and awaited instructions. The ANO was estimated to have about 500 members at its peak, carrying out operations in more than 20 countries across Europe and the Middle East.

The ANO attacked the Syrian embassies in Rome, Italy, and Islamabad, Pakistan, and assassinated PLO representatives in London, Paris, Kuwait, and Brussels. Its most significant action, however, was a June 1982 assassination attempt on the Israeli ambassador to England, Shlomo Argov, in London. This attack precipitated the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where the PLO had its headquarters, and was a serious blow to that organization. A striking feature of the ANO was its versatility and ability to adapt its tactics to various situations. ANO attacks have taken the form of car bombings, kidnappings, hijackings, suicide bombings, and assassinations.

In 1983, Hussein expelled al-Banna and the ANO, in the hope of acquiring Western support for his war with Iran (1980–1988). Al-Banna resettled the ANO in Syria; in so doing, he displayed his willingness to abandon former enmity when it was to his advantage, a trait that has led some observers to characterize the ANO as merely a mercenary organization. The Syrians never fully trusted al-Banna, however, and [Page 4]less than two years later, he moved the organization to Libya. This period, the mid-1980s, was the ANO's most active. The ANO carried out a campaign against Jordan, assassinating several Jordanian ambassadors. The ANO also attacked the counters of the Israeli airline El Al at the Rome and Vienna airports on December 27, 1985, killing 17 people and wounding more than 100. On September 6, 1986, the ANO massacred 22 worshippers at a synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey; on that same day ANO terrorists hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan, eventually massacring 22 people when negotiations failed.

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