Abu Nidal

Who was Abu Nidal?

Abu Nidal, born Sabri Khalil al-Banna, was the founder of "Fatah – The Revolutionary Council", a militant Palestinian splinter group also known as the Abu Nidal Organization. At the height of his power in the 1970s and 1980s, Abu Nidal was widely regarded as the most ruthless of the Palestinian political leaders. In a rare interview given in 1985, he told Der Spiegel: "I am the evil spirit which moves around only at night causing ... nightmares."

Abu Nidal formed the ANO in 1974 after splitting from Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization and taking up a rejectionist stance. Acting as a freelance mercenary, the United States Department of State believe he was responsible for attacks in at least twenty different countries, killing or injuring over 900 people. His organization's most notorious operation was the simultaneous Rome and Vienna airport attacks on 27 December 1985, when gunmen opened fire on the El Al ticket counters at both locations, killing eighteen people and wounding 120. Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal's biographer, wrote of the attacks that their "random cruelty marked them as typical Abu Nidal operations". Reports describing the purges implemented by Abu Nidal and close associates provided further evidence of his and his organization's nature.