Analysis: Who was Abu Nidal really?

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Sabri al Banna -- better known by his nom-de-guerre of Abu Nidal -- and one of the world's most-sought-after terrorists for three decades, died much as he lived, cloaked in mystery, secrecy and controversy.

Initial reports surrounding his death in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, were at first rebutted, later confirmed, disavowed once again, and finally corroborated by Iraqi authorities.

Early reports said he was probably killed by any of the multitude of people who wanted him dead -- the list is indeed a long one -- but it appears that Abu Nidal shot himself, as Iraqi security officers were about to arrest him and bring him in for interrogation. It could well be that he did indeed commit suicide, but this is just another piece of a complicated and intricate puzzle, of which the full picture will never quite emerge.

Abu Nidal's long-running solo career in terrorism started in 1974, when he broke away from Yasser Arafat's mainline Palestine Liberation Organization, claiming it was not radical enough for his liking. He founded the Fatah Revolutionary Council, basing himself alternatively in Damascus, Tripoli and Baghdad, changing his allegiance according to who was signing the paycheck, and selling his expertise in the shadowy world of terror to the highest bidder.

During his nearly 30-year run, Abu Nidal is believed to have been responsible for the deaths of nearly 900 people. But most, if not all, of his operations were far more harmful to the Palestinian cause in particular, and hurtful to other Arab countries in general, than they were detrimental to Israel, or, for that matter, posed any real threat to its security.

To be sure, Abu Nidal -- whose name in Arabic means father of the struggle -- carried out numerous deadly attacks against American and Jewish targets, attacks that left many bodies in their wake. But these were largely "soft" targets, directed at easy objectives such as airliners, cruise ships and other crowded places that offered effortless and mostly unprotected targets -- and they produced no really serious change.

Consider the death toll:

-- 32 in an attack on a Pan Am jet in Rome on Dec. 17, 1973;

-- 88 when a TWA jet on route to Greece from Israel is blown up over the Ionian Sea on Oct. 8, 1974;

-- 6 in an attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris' Rue des Rosiers, on Aug. 9, 1982, that also left 22 injured;

-- 19 in assaults on El Al ticket counters at Rome and Vienna airports on Dec. 27, 1985, that also injured 120;

-- 4 when a bomb on a TWA airliner exploded during a landing at Athens airport on April 2, 1986;

-- 20 in Karachi when security forces stormed a hijacked Pan Am plane, on Sept. 5, 1986;

-- 22 in an Istanbul synagogue, on Sept. 6, 1986; and

-- 9 during an attack on a Greek cruise ship City of Poros, on July 11, 1988, that also left 98 wounded.

While these deaths and accompanying acts of terror are nothing to belittle, they nonetheless represent no major hard target, and resulted in no reactions or forced policy changes from either the American or Israeli governments.

Quite to the contrary, they only served to further discredit the Palestinians and Arabs in general, and made it all the more difficult -- and perilous -- for those in the PLO who tried to engage in peaceful dialogue with the Israelis.

And among his many nefarious acts, the most politically damaging were in fact those carried out against Palestinians loyal to Arafat. The assaults against Arafat's followers are certainly the ones that required the most intensive preparation, planning and careful execution.

Among the most devastating of Abu Nidal's actions -- for Palestinians, that is -- was his failed assassination attempt on June 3, 1982, against Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the Court of St. James.

The ambassador was wounded, but the attack was used as a pretext by then-Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon, to launch his full-scale invasion of Lebanon and expel Arafat and the PLO from their Lebanese stronghold.

Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians died in the conflict, which saw the first occupation of an Arab capital by Israel. More Palestinian civilians were slaughtered when right-wing Lebanese Christian militias went into the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila, which were ringed by Israeli soldiers. Though cleared of direct implication in the massacres, Sharon was later forced to resign as defense minister.

Even further:

-- Several high-ranking PLO officials loyal to Arafat, based in Rome and London, including Issam Sartawi, a moderate Palestinian official in Lisbon, were killed by Abu Nidal's group between 1978 and 1983. Some of these officials were reported to have been engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiating with left-wing Israelis.

-- Naim Khader, the PLO representative to the European Community in Brussels, was assassinated on June 1, 1981.

-- Eight people were killed and 89 wounded in Kuwait City, in a drive to force oil-producing Gulf states to pay him protection money in July 1985.

-- Sixty passengers died in a shootout between Egyptian special forces and hijackers when an Egyptian airliner, on Nov. 23, 1985, on the Mediterranean island of Malta, was taken over by four gunmen who cold-bloodedly killed six hostages.

-- Two of Arafat's top aides were killed in Tunis on Jan. 14, 1991, by guerrillas acting under orders from Abu Nidal.

-- Naeb Umran Maaitah, a Jordanian diplomat, was assassinated in front of his embassy in Beirut, on Jan. 29, 1994.

In the final analysis, one may well ask the question, who was really pulling Abu Nidal's strings? Syria, Iraq and Libya have all been cited at one time or another as being Abu Nidal's patron. Some Middle Eastern observers, drawing on the conspiracy theories endemic to the region, have even suggested that Israel's Mossad intelligence agency was behind him.

Now that he is dead, we may never know the truth. But there remains one certain fact: Not one of his actions was beneficial to the Palestinians.

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