Who is Abu Nidal?
Abu Nidal, which means “father of the struggle” in Arabic, is the alias of Sabri al-Banna, who was born in 1937 into a landowning family in British-ruled Palestine. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Banna’s family fled, ending up in the West Bank. In the 1950s, he joined the Arab nationalist Ba’ath Party, and in 1967 he got involved with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Abu Nidal represented al-Fatah—the dominant faction of the PLO, led by Yasir Arafat—in Sudan and later Iraq. He split with the PLO in 1974 after it proposed the creation of a national authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a step toward Palestinian statehood. Abu Nidal, who continued to advocate Israel’s destruction, accused the PLO of selling out and set up his own organization, the Fatah Revolutionary Council—signifying that he saw his group as the true heir to Arafat’s Fatah movement.

What terrorist activities has the Abu Nidal Organization undertaken?
Many of the group’s targets have been Israelis, PLO officials, and representatives of Arab governments it dislikes. Westerners were also targeted until the late 1980s. Among the group’s best-known attacks are:

• the 1994 assassination of the senior Jordanian diplomat Naeb Imran Maaytah in Beirut;
• the January 1991 assassination of Abu Iyyad, the PLO’s second-in-command after Arafat, and another PLO official in Tunis;
• a September 1986 shooting at the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey, that killed 22;
• the December 1985 attempted hijacking of a Pan Am flight in Karachi, Pakistan, in which 22 people died;
• the December 1985 attacks on El Al airport counters in Rome and Vienna, which killed 18 people and injured 111;
• the June 1982 attempt to assassinate Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov in London, which helped trigger Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

What are the Abu Nidal Organization’s goals?
The group wants the state of Israel to be eliminated, preferably through an international Arab revolution, and therefore supports “armed struggle” against Israel. It bitterly opposes Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, as well as the United States, the PLO, and moderate Arab regimes in Jordan, Egypt, and the Persian Gulf states. It has also served as a mercenary terrorist force for radical Arab regimes.

Has the Abu Nidal Organization received state support?
Yes. Iraq, Syria, and Libya have all harbored the group and given it training, logistical support, and funding, often using the ANO as guns or hire. Abu Nidal began working with Iraqi intelligence while representing Fatah in Baghdad, experts say. He formed his organization with Iraq’s help and began by attacking Syria and the PLO. In 1983, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein expelled Abu Nidal and his group in an attempt to win American military support for Iraq’s 1980s war with neighboring Iran. Once the war ended, Iraq resumed its support of Abu Nidal.

After being expelled from Iraq, the organization moved to Syria, where it worked to undermine peace plans involving Jordan, Israel, and the PLO. In turn, Syria expelled the Abu Nidal Organization in 1987, probably under U.S. pressure to distance itself from terrorists, at which point Libya took it in. In 1999, in an attempt to rid itself of international sanctions, Libya kicked out the Abu Nidal Organization.