Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command

In 1968, Ahmad Jibril led a number of discontented members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to form a separate group. Claiming to focus more on fighting and less on politics, they created the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP–GC).

According to the U.S. State Department, PFLP–GC operatives carried out dozens of attacks in Europe and the Middle East during the 1970s and 1980s. They also engaged in various kidnappings. In May 1985, according to press reports, Israel exchanged 1,150 Arab prisoners for three Israelis held by the PFLP–GC. As of 2010, The State Department continued to list the PFLP–GC as an [Page 487]active foreign terrorist organization in its report on global terrorism.

Jibril, a former captain in the Syrian army, originally based the group in Damascus. Although its headquarters remains in Syria, the PFLP–GC is now also closely tied to Iran. According to the State Department, the group receives logistic and military support from Syria, and financial support from Iran. Press reports in the mid-1990s disclosed that the PFLP–GC began to set up training camps in several areas of Iran.

After Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people, U.S. officials originally suspected that PFLP–GC operatives were paid by Iranian officials to carry out the crime. The Pan Am bombing happened just four months after a U.S. military cruiser accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus, killing 290. After the Airbus disaster, Iranian government officials and affiliated militant groups had issued threats of revenge. Jibril denied any involvement in the Lockerbie bombing, and a lengthy criminal investigation carried out by Scottish officials later pointed to two Libyan Arab Airlines employees.

When Salman Rushdie published his novel The Satanic Verses in 1988, Jibril made headlines by publicly declaring that the PFLP–GC was prepared to carry out the Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's fatwa against the author. Recently, the group has focused on guerrilla attacks in southern Lebanon and small-scale attacks in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, often working in cooperation with Hezbollah. Rocket attacks launched into Israel from Lebanon by the PFLP-GC resulted in a number of retaliatory air strikes by Israeli jets in the mid-2000s.