Análisis Stratfor Global Intelligence, 15.10.2016 Fred Burton
(Stratfor)
The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is often a matter of perspective. Earlier this month, Mahmoud Abbas, one of the last of a generation of leaders who, depending on your point of view, fits one or perhaps both labels, drew more than a little international attention. On Oct. 8, the 81-year-old Palestinian president was hospitalized briefly for a heart assessment after feeling faint. Just over a week before that, Abbas made headlines for shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Shimon Peres' funeral.
The brief exchange drew the ire of many Palestinians (one of whom, a Palestinian security officer, was sentenced to a year in prison for criticizing the gesture). But it was not Abbas' first brush with diplomacy — or controversy. Before he became the president of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas was among the founding members of Fatah, and he made many visits to the United States along with Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat. That is where my path as an agent with the Diplomatic Security Service intersected his.
When the Palestinians visited, whether for appearances at the United Nations or for peace talks with the Israelis, their protective details ran heavy, with armored limousines, counterassault vehicles and intelligence teams. Like Peres, they were also high-profile targets with many enemies, including the Israelis. As one of the early members of Fatah's trusted inner circle, Abbas, who raised money for the Palestinian cause and was also among the PLO's leaders, was right in the center of the long-held enmity between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The strife in the Middle East sparked the genesis of one of the world's most infamous terrorist groups. From a stable of willing actors inside the PLO's intelligence branch — Jihaz ar-Rasd — Arafat in 1971 created a secret terrorist unit known as the Black September Organization. For students of terrorism, it may represent the most effective group of its kind. Black September's original mission was to avenge the thousands of Palestinians killed in Jordan in September 1970, when King Hussein ordered his army into action against Palestinian guerrilla organizations. But it soon turned into a larger campaign with a wider array of targets.
Spectacular was the norm for their Black September's operations, among them the infamous 1972 siege of the Olympic Village in Munich and subsequent murder of 11 Israeli athletes. The group also pulled off the hijacking of a Sabena flight from Brussels to Tel Aviv, embassy seizures in Bangkok and Khartoum, hostage-takings, bombings, and assassinations of U.S. and Israeli diplomatic personnel, including the 1973 murder of Israeli defense attache Col. Yosef Alon in Maryland (the subject of my 2011 book Chasing Shadows). The Olympics massacre touched off a clandestine war between Black September and the fearsome Israeli spy agency Mossad. With bombs under beds and close-range pistol shots, Israeli hit teams spanned the globe to hunt down and assassinate Black September operatives. Killings took place in Paris, Nicosia, Beirut, Athens and Rome.
Personalities inside Black September were larger than life. One such example is Ali Hassan Salameh, also known as "The Red Prince," whose playboy lifestyle and CIA interactions were wonderfully depicted in David Ignatius' brilliant novel Agents of Innocence. Salameh even married a Miss Universe. Once Black September was disbanded, Salameh became the head of Fatah's Force 17, Arafat's personal security detail. He was also a secret back channel to the CIA and State Department. In fact, during the civil war in Lebanon, Salameh turned protector of American diplomats. That couldn't save him, though. In 1979, he was assassinated by Mossad operatives in Beirut for his ties to Munich and other killings. A grainy black and white photograph of the murder is on my desk.
Mossad killed the bulk of Black September's members, and Palestinian rivals eliminated others. Abbas, however, is a survivor of those murderous days of retribution and factional strife. Despite some suspicions, the role Abbas played in funding the terrorist group's activities — or even the extent of his knowledge of them — has never been demonstrated. That, plus the backing of some powerful benefactors (according to archived documents, Abbas was the PLO's liaison to the KGB), might be one reason he is still alive when so many of his compatriots ended up on the wrong side of Israeli vengeance. As in all operations in the dark world of terror, some of these questions may never be answered.
