An "Apparent" Suicide

LAST SUNDAY on "Meet the Press," as Vice President Dick Cheney answered Tim Russert's questions about Iraq, Halliburton, and his political future, one thing was mentioned that deserves further exploration:

"We know that Saddam Hussein has, over the years, been one of the top state sponsors of terrorism for nearly 20 years," Cheney said. "We've had this recent weird incident where the head of the Abu Nidal organization, one of the world's most noted terrorists, was killed in Baghdad. The announcement was made by the head of Iraqi intelligence. The initial announcement said he'd shot himself. When they dug into that, though, he'd shot himself four times in the head. And speculation has been, that, in fact, somehow, the Iraqi government or Saddam Hussein had him eliminated to avoid potential embarrassment by virtue of the fact that he was in Baghdad and operated in Baghdad. So it's a very complex picture to try to sort out."

The picture is complex, but it's more than just a "weird incident," and a recent, exhaustive report from "Jane's World Insurgency and Terrorism" sheds some light on this Middle Eastern murder mystery. We learn that Abu Nidal (whose name means "Father of the Struggle") was indeed murdered by Saddam Hussein's henchmen. The reason was not "to avoid potential embarrassment by virtue of the fact that he was in Baghdad," but rather, that Abu Nidal was an enemy of the state and was plotting to help overthrow Saddam's regime. According to the highly respected "Jane's," with the aid of official and nonofficial sources in Ramallah, Amman, Baghdad, London, Washington, and Beirut, "the Iraqi dictator is now feeling the pressure from the ongoing U.S. deliberations over a potential invasion to topple his regime. In any such adventure, the anti-Saddam elements within Iraq would most likely okay an important role in turning the tide against Saddam. He has therefore moved to eradicate those dangerous elements, both as a preemptive measure to protect his position and as an example to other prospective internal enemies still at large."

So how does Abu Nidal, whose faction was once termed by the State Department as "the most dangerous terrorist organization in existence," lose favor with Saddam Hussein, perhaps the most hated dictator in the world? Although Abu Nidal had done "jobs" for Hussein in the 1970s and '80s, he lost favor when he sided with Kuwait and the Saudis during the Gulf War. Even more damning, according to the "Jane's" investigation, Iraqi agents claimed to have found "classified documents and plans concerning a U.S. attack" in his Baghdad apartment.

Still, it's one thing for Saddam to suspect Abu Nidal of being an enemy of the state; it's entirely another thing to assume he would help America with its goal of "regime change." After all, from 1973 to 1994 Abu Nidal had masterminded some of the worst acts of terror in the Middle East and Europe. His victims have included both Jews and Palestinians, Europeans and Americans.

ABU NIDAL was originally named Sabri Khalil al-Bana. Like Osama bin Laden, he came from a wealthy family. Born in 1937 in the port town of Jaffa, al-Bana later became a Gaza refugee in 1948 and ended up in Nablus in the West Bank. He worked as both a teacher and an electrician. Most of all, he was a fervent believer in a Palestinian state--and not one that coexisted side-by-side with Israel. He served willingly under Yasser Arafat, having joined forces with him in 1960, and soon became a high-ranking diplomat in Khartoum and Baghdad. But the difference in visions between Arafat and Nidal would lead to a split in 1974 (Nidal was supported on this move by then-Iraqi vice president Saddam Hussein). He then set up his Fatah Revolutionary Council and embarked on a struggle to bring death to Israel and those Palestinians who might have been willing to compromise.

One of his early acts of terror remains his deadliest--the 1974 bombing of a TWA commercial airliner going from Israel to Greece. All 88 people on board perished. In 1978, the FRC murdered Said Hammami and Izzadin Kalak, the PLO representatives to, respectively, London and Paris. In 1983, they assassinated Issam Sartawi, a PLO diplomat stationed in Lisbon. In 1985, FRC terrorists attacked El Al airport counters in Rome and Vienna--simultaneously--killing 19 and wounding 120. The following year, an Istanbul synagogue was hit, leaving 22 more dead. In 1991, an FRC hitman murdered Salah Khalaf, Arafat's second-in-command. (Arafat issued a death sentence to Abu Nidal, and, from time to time, attempted to patch things up with him--to no avail.)