Abu Nidal (Sabri al-Banna) was regarded as the most dangerous of the Palestinian political leaders. Abu Nidal, whose pseudonym means "father of struggle" (Abu meaning father and Nidal, a secular term, meaning "struggle" or "effort" in Arabic) was primarily active in the 1970s and 1980s in the left wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization and later the secular/rejectionist front, and was accused by Western and Arab sources of acting as a mercenary for various Arab governments.
List of attacks attributed to Abu Nidal The following list has been compiled from a variety of sources. It is not complete and may contain errors. Some of these attacks have been claimed by several groups, some of them by no group, and others may have been falsely claimed by or attributed to Abu Nidal's organization. Especially noteworthy attacks have been marked in bold type.
See the references section for more details.
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List of attacks attributed to Abu Nidal 1970s: 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 External links — References
1972 5 September 1972: Abu Nidal is believed to have been involved in the planning of the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics.
1973 5 September 1973: Occupation of the Saudi embassy in Paris, in order to gain the release of Abu Daoud, then imprisoned in Jordan. 25 November 1973: KLM Flight 861 from Beirut to New York City and Tokyo hijacked over Iraqi airspace and diverted to Nicosia, Cyprus, then Valletta, Malta. Passengers and crew released. Claimed by the Arab Nationalist Youth Organization.
1974 8 September 1974: Bombing of TWA Flight 841. All 79 passengers died. October 1974: Aborted assassination attempt on Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Following this he is sentenced to death in absentia by the PLO council. It is at this point that he founds the independent Abu Nidal Organisation. 22 November 1974: British Airways Vickers VC-10 flight from London to the Far East hijacked in Dubai and diverted to Tunis. One passenger was killed. The hijackers were allowed to fly to Libya.
1975
1976 27 September 1976: Attack and takeover of the Semiramis Hotel, Damascus, Syria. Three of the captured attackers were hanged in public the next day. Pages 84–86 The attack left five people dead, including the leader of the group and four hostages. Another 34 hostages were wounded after a seven-hour shootout. 11 October 1976: Attacks on the Syrian embassies in Islamabad and Rome, leaving one dead and two injured.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 17 November 1976: ANO fighters stormed the Intercontinental Hotel in Amman, Jordan, taking several hostages. The hotel was stormed in turn by Jordanian security forces, and three gunmen, two soldiers and two civilians were killed. The remaining attackers were executed shortly afterwards.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 1 December 1976: Syrian foreign minister Abdul Halim Khaddam was shot and wounded in an attack on his car in Damascus.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 13 December 1976: Foiled attack on the Syrian embassy in Istanbul.
1977 October 1977: Second assassination attempt on Khaddam at Abu Dhabi Airport, during which the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates Saif Ghobash was killed by accident. 15 November 1977: Assassination of the director of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris
1978 4 January 1978: Assassination of Said Hammami, PLO representative in London, United Kingdom. 18 February 1978: Egyptian journalist Yusuf Sibai was killed whilst acting as president of the Conference of the Organization for the Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America. 1978: Assassination of PLO representative in Brussels, Belgium. 15 June 1978: Assassination of Ali Yassin, PLO representative in Kuwait. 3 August 1978: Ezzedine Kalak, PLO representative to Paris, was assassinated along with an assistant. 5 August 1978: PLO offices in Islamabad were raided by ANO militants, leaving four dead and an unknown number of wounded. 1978: Assassination of PLO representative in Rome, Italy. 1978: Assassination of PLO representative in Madrid, Spain.
1979
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List of attacks attributed to Abu Nidal 1980s: 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 External links — References
1980 17 January 1980: Yussouf Mubarak, director of the Palestinian library-shop, was assassinated in Paris, France. 19 January 1980: Hamdan al-Id, member of Fatah, was shot dead in Beirut. 3 March 1980: Adolfo Cotelo Villareal, lawyer and businessman, was killed by Said Ali Salman in Madrid after being mistakenly confused for Max Mazin, a businessman who was seen as a representative of capitalism and Zionism. April 1980: In Budapest, a grenade was thrown into a car in which Abu Daoud and Abu Iyad, two high-ranking members of Fatah (and the PLO), were sitting. Both of them survived. The assassination attempt is later traced to the Abu Nidal Organization. 27 July 1980: 1980 Antwerp summer camp attack. Carried out with two hand grenades by Abu Nidal operative Said Al Nasr on group of Jewish children waiting with their families for a summer camp bus in Antwerp, Belgium. A 15-year-old bystander was killed and eight others seriously injured. 27 July 1980: ANO claimed responsibility for the murder of an Israeli commercial attaché in Brussels.
1981 6 February 1981: Hisham Muheissen, the Jordanian charge d'affairs in Beirut was kidnapped and three of his bodyguards killed by unidentified attackers, later believed to be ANO. Mulheissen was released unharmed 67 days later.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 1 May 1981: Assassination of councilman Heinz Nittel in Vienna, Austria. Nittel was President of the Austrian-Israeli Friendship Association and had been involved in the peace process in Israel.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 1 June 1981: Killing of Naim Khader, the PLO representative in Belgium. 1 August 1981: Fatah chief Abu Daoud was shot multiple times in the Victoria Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw, Poland but survived. He later claimed the attempted assassination was carried out by a Palestinian double agent recruited by the Mossad. According to Polish sources, the suspected perpetrator was a person known as Daher Hussein. Samir Hassan Najmadeen, who was Abu Nidal's "accountant", was suspected of taking part in the operation.Międzynarodowi terroryści w PRL – historia niewymuszonej współpracy „Szakal” w Warszawie 1 August 1981: A series of bombings damaged several French banks and businesses, the Air France office and the Saudi embassy in Beirut, though nobody was seriously hurt.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge BaseMIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 29 August 1981: 1981 Vienna synagogue attack: Two men attacked a Vienna synagogue with machine guns. Two civilians were killed and 23 wounded, including three policemen. The attackers were arrested and imprisoned. 4 September 1981: The French ambassador to Lebanon, Louis Delamare, was assassinated in Beirut in a bungled kidnap attempt.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 23 September 1981: Five Greek Cypriots were injured in a grenade attack on shipping offices in Limassol.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 6 October 1981: PLO officer Majed Abu Sharar was assassinated by a bomb hidden in his hotel room in Rome, Italy. ANO claimed he was compromising the principles of the revolution.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 7 November 1981: A kidnap attempt on a Saudi diplomat was foiled in Beirut.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
1982
3 June 1982: Attempted assassination in London of Shlomo Argov, Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom. The Israeli government blamed the PLO for the attack, and this was one of the incidents which provoked a large-scale invasion of Lebanon on 6 June. Argov was permanently disabled and died of his injuries 21 years later.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 4 June 1982: A Kuwaiti diplomat was assassinated outside his home in New Delhi, India.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 7 July 1982: A Jordanian diplomat was assassinated and another seriously injured during an attack in Athens.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 9 August 1982: During an attack on Goldenberg Restaurant in the Jewish quarter of Paris, six people are killed and 22 wounded.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 26 August 1982: Two failed assassination attempts – on the United Arab Emirates consul in Bombay and a Kuwaiti diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan. 1982: Assassination of PLO official in Madrid, Spain. 16 September 1982: Kuwaiti diplomat Najeed Sayed al-Rafaia was assassinated in Madrid, when he was mistaken for the ambassador. 18 September 1982: Four people were wounded when the Great Synagogue of Brussels is attacked in a "shoot and run" incident.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 9 October 1982: 1982 Great Synagogue of Rome attack: five elegantly dressed attackers threw at least three hand grenades and sprayed a crowd of people with submachine fire, as they were leaving the central synagogue in Rome, Italy. A 2-year-old toddler (Stefano Gaj Taché) was killed in the attack, and 37 people were injured.
1983 10 April 1983: Noted PLO dove and Arafat aide Issam Sartawi was killed at the Socialist International conference in Albufeira, Portugal.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 1983: Attack on the Jordanian ambassador to Italy. The victim survived. 29 August 1983: A French aircraft was hijacked from Vienna, Austria and taken to Tehran. No one was hurt in the incident.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 23 September 1983: Bombing of Gulf Air Flight 771. 117 people killed. 26 October 1983: Jordanian ambassador to India was shot six times in an ambush in New Delhi, but survived his injuries. 27 October 1983: Jordanian ambassador to Italy, Taysir AlaEddin Toukan, was shot and wounded along with his driver during an ambush by two gunmen in Rome. Both men survived. 7 November 1983: Attack on the Jordanian embassy in Athens, Greece. A guard was killed. 9 November 1983: An improvised device blast in the As-Salt Street in Amman, Jordan. 26 December 1983: Two people were injured by a bomb explosion outside a Marks and Spencer department store in London, England. The Provisional Irish Republican Army was blamed, but it later emerged that the ANO was responsible. December 1983: ANO was accused of responsibility for the bombing of the French Cultural Center in İzmir, Turkey. 29 December 1983: The Jordanian ambassador to Spain was assassinated in Madrid.
1984 1984: Assassination of Jordanian ambassador in India. 1984: Assassination of Jordanian ambassador in Spain. 1984: Assassination of Jordanian ambassador in Italy. 8 February 1984: The United Arab Emirates' ambassador to France, Khalifa Ahmad Mubarak, was assassinated on a Paris street.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 7 March 1984: Three were killed and nine injured in the bombing of a civilian bus in Ashdod, Israel.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 24 March 1984: In Amman, a bomb was found and removed at the Intercontinental Hotel, coinciding with the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Jordan.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 28 March 1984: British Cultural Attache and British Council representative Kenneth Whitty was assassinated in Athens by a single gunman, coinciding with the start of a European tour of A School For Scandal, to celebrate the British Council's 50th anniversary, which opened in Athens three days later on 31 March. 2 April 1984: 48 people were wounded by a machine gun attack on a crowded shopping mall in Jerusalem, Israel.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 14 May 1984: A bomb blast in Attica, Greece, left more than 53 people injured. 24 May 1984; Bomb exploded in Athens restaurant, no one is hurt.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 5 June 1984: Assassination attempt on Israeli diplomat in Cairo, Egypt. 4 October 1984: A car bomb exploded in the Israeli embassy car park in Nicosia, Cyprus. One person was hurtMIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base 4 October 1984: An Israeli intelligence agent was killed with four other people in an ambush on a Beirut street.MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base