Sánchez, Ilich Ramírez (Carlos the Jackal) (1949–)

Terrorism Training

While at the university, Carlos had become engaged in the Palestinian cause after meeting Muhammad Boudia, a fellow student and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). George Habash had created the PFLP after the crushing defeat of a joint Arab army by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Determined to strike back at Israel, in 1968 the PFLP abandoned conventional military tactics, taking up bombings, assassinations, and civilian airline hijackings. Its techniques contributed significantly to the development of modern terrorism, and radical groups began to look to the PFLP as a model. The PFLP welcomed them, allowing terrorists from around the world to attend its training sessions. Habash hoped to use these foreigners to advance the Palestinian cause in the West.

[Page 322]After his expulsion from Lumumba, Carlos traveled to Lebanon and a PFLP training camp. He attended two three-month training sessions during 1970 and 1971, becoming one of Habash's most prized students. It was Habash who in 1971 gave him the alias “Carlos,” under which he would become world famous.

Terrorist Actions

In the fall of 1971, Carlos traveled to London to begin work for the PFLP. His friend Boudia was now in charge of PFLP operatives in Europe. At first, Carlos stuck to collecting intelligence, compiling a 500-person hit list for PFLP. In June 1973, Israeli agents killed Boudia, and Carlos was named PFLP co-commander in Europe, along with Muhammad Moukharbal. Carlos made his first foray into active terrorism in December 1973 with the attempted assassination of Joseph Edward Seiff, a British Jewish businessman.

Carlos and Moukharbal next arranged the August 3, 1974, bombing of four news outlets deemed to be pro-Israeli. Car bombs were placed outside the company's Paris headquarters, set to detonate at 2 A.M.; one of the bombs, placed outside the Maison de Radio, failed to go off. No one was injured.

Acting on the advice of Wadi Haddad, during 1974 and 1975 Carlos began working with other terrorist groups. In September of 1974, Carlos consulted with the Japanese Red Army (JRA) on its planned assault on the French embassy in The Hague, Netherlands. The JRA succeeded in capturing the embassy, but negotiations with the French government were stalled. To prod the French to again negotiate, Carlos is believed to have slipped into a Paris café called the Drugstore, situated in a crowded shopping area, and thrown a hand grenade from the second floor balcony into the crowd below. Thirty-three people were injured and two were killed in the attack; soon afterward, the French government acceded to the JRA's demands. The grenade used in the attack was later discovered to have been stolen by the Baader-Meinhof Gang, a group of West German terrorists, from a U.S. Army base in Germany. Carlos is also believed to have aided the Latin American terror coalition Junta de Coordinacion Revolutionaria with its assassination of the Uruguayan attaché to France in December 1974.

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