Abu Nidal
| Abu Nidal أبو نضال |
|
|---|---|
Abu Nidal in an image released in 1976
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|
| Born |
Sabri Khalil al-Banna صبري خليل البنا May 1937 Jaffa, Mandatory Palestine |
| Died | 16 August 2002 (aged 65) Baghdad, Ba'athist Iraq |
| Resting place | al-Karakh Islamic cemetery, Baghdad |
| Nationality | Palestinian |
| Organization |
Fatah: The Revolutionary Council
(فتح المجلس الثوري) known as the Abu Nidal Organization |
| Movement | Palestinian Rejectionist Front |
Sabri Khalil al-Banna (May 1937 – 16 August 2002), known as Abu Nidal, was the founder of Fatah - the Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter group more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). At the height of its power in the 1970s and 1980s, the ANO was widely regarded as the most ruthless of the Palestinian groups.
Abu Nidal ("father of struggle") formed the ANO in October 1974 after a split from Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Acting as a freelance contractor, Abu Nidal is believed to have ordered attacks in 20 countries, killing over 300 and injuring over 650. The group's operations included the Rome and Vienna airport attacks on 27 December 1985, when gunmen opened fire on passengers in simultaneous shootings at El Al ticket counters, killing 20. Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal's biographer, wrote of the shootings that their "random cruelty marked them as typical Abu Nidal operations."
Abu Nidal died after a shooting in his Baghdad apartment in August 2002. Palestinian sources believed he was killed on the orders of Saddam Hussein, while Iraqi officials insisted he had committed suicide during an interrogation. "He was the patriot turned psychopath," David Hirst wrote in the Guardian on the news of his death. "He served only himself, only the warped personal drives that pushed him into hideous crime. He was the ultimate mercenary."
Abu Nidal was born in May 1937 in Jaffa, on the Mediterranean coast of what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. His father, Hajj Khalil al-Banna, owned 6,000 acres (24 km2) of orange groves situated between Jaffa and Majdal, today Ashkelon in Israel. The family lived in luxury in a three-storey stone house near the beach, later used as an Israeli military court. Muhammad Khalil al-Banna, Abu Nidal's brother, told Yossi Melman:
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