Abu Nidal (1934-2002)

Palestinian-Arab terrorist. During the late 1950s he joined Yassir Arafat's Fatah guerrilla group, which was linked to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). However, he was critical of what he saw as its moderate stance and, when expelled in 1973, set up his own, more extreme Palestinian Arab terrorist organization, known as the ‘Al-Fatah Revolutionary Command’, also known as ‘Black June’. This clandestine body was responsible for a series of ruthless assassinations, hijackings, and kidnappings of Israeli, Western, and ‘moderate Palestinian’ targets. The Abu Nidal Group's activities have been condemned by the PLO, which sentenced Abu Nidal to death, in 1974.

The Abu Nidal Group's attempted assassination, in June 1982, of the Israeli ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, gave Israel the pretext to launch an invasion of Lebanon, while its December 1985 attacks on passengers at Rome and Vienna airports led to US bombing reprisals against Libya. Abu Nidal received backing initially from Iraq and then, in the early 1980s, from Syria and Libya. Iraqi assistance was resumed in 1990.