Editing Abu Nidal (section)

== Political life ==

=== Impex, Black September ===
In Saudi Arabia Abu Nidal helped found a small group of young Palestinians who called themselves the Palestine Secret Organization. The activism cost him his job and home: Aramco fired him, and the Saudi government imprisoned then expelled him.<sup>[26]</sup> He returned to Nablus with his wife and family, and joined Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO. Working as an odd-job man, he was committed to Palestinian politics but was not particularly active, until Israel won the 1967 [[Six-Day War]], capturing the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Melman writes that "the entrance of the Israel Defense Forces tanks into Nablus was a traumatic experience for him. The conquest aroused him to action."<sup>[35]</sup>

After moving to Amman, Jordan, he set up a trading company called Impex, which acted as a front for Fatah, serving as a meeting place and conduit for funds. This became a hallmark of Abu Nidal's career. Companies controlled by the ANO made him a rich man by engaging in legitimate business deals, while acting as cover for arms deals and mercenary activities><sup>[32]</sup>

When Fatah asked him to choose a ''nom de guerre'', he chose Abu Nidal ("father of struggle") after his son, Nidal.<sup>[6]</sup> Those who knew him at the time said he was a well-organized leader, not a guerrilla; during fighting between the Palestinian fedayeens and King Hussein's troops, he stayed in his office.<sup>[36]</sup> In 1968 Abu Iyad appointed him as the Fatah representative in Khartoum, Sudan; then, at Abu Nidal's insistence, to the same position in Baghdad in July 1970. He arrived two months before "[[Black September]]", when over 10 days of fighting King Hussein's army drove the Palestinian fedayeens out of Jordan, with the loss of thousands of lives. Abu Nidal's absence from Jordan during this period, Seale writes, when it was clear that King Hussein was about to act against the Palestinians, raised suspicion within the movement that he was interested only in saving himself.<sup>[37]</sup>

=== First operation ===
Shortly after Black September, Abu Nidal began accusing the PLO, over his Voice of Palestine radio station in Iraq, of cowardice for having agreed to a ceasefire with Hussein.<sup>[37]</sup> During Fatah's Third Congress in Damascus in 1971, he joined Palestinian activist and writer Naji Allush and Abu Daoud (leader of the Black September Organization responsible for the 1972 [[Munich Massacre]]) in calling for greater democracy within Fatah and revenge against King Hussein.<sup>[38]</sup>

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, in 2014

In February 1973, Abu Daoud was arrested in Jordan for an attempt on King Hussein's life. This led to Abu Nidal's first operation, using the name ''Al-Iqab'' ("the Punishment"). On 5 September 1973, five gunmen entered the Saudi embassy in Paris, took 15 hostages and threatened to blow up the building if Abu Daoud was not released.<sup>[39][40]</sup> The gunmen flew two days later to Kuwait on a Syrian Airways flight, still holding five hostages, then to Riyadh, threatening to throw the hostages out of the aircraft. They surrendered and released the hostages on 8 September.<sup>[41][42]</sup> Abu Daoud was released from prison two weeks later; Seale writes that the Kuwaiti government paid King Hussein $12 million for his release.<sup>[41]</sup>

On the day of the attack, 56 heads of state were meeting in Algiers for the 4th conference of the Non-Aligned Movement. According to Seale, the Saudi Embassy operation had been commissioned by Iraq's president, [[Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr]], as a distraction because he was jealous that Algeria was hosting the conference. Seale writes one of the hostage-takers admitted that he had been told to fly the hostages around until the conference was over.<sup>[43]</sup>

Abu Nidal had carried out the operation without the permission of Fatah.<sup>[44]</sup> Abu Iyad (Arafat's deputy) and Mahmoud Abbas (later President of the Palestinian Authority), flew to Iraq to reason with Abu Nidal that hostage-taking harmed the movement. Abu Iyad told Seale that an Iraqi official at the meeting said: "Why are you attacking Abu Nidal? The operation was ours! We asked him to mount it for us." Abbas was furious and left the meeting with the other PLO delegates. From that point on, Seale writes, the PLO regarded Abu Nidal as under the control of the Iraqi government.<sup>[43]</sup>

=== Expulsion from Fatah ===
Two months later, in November 1973 (just after the [[Yom Kippur War]] in October), the ANO hijacked KLM Flight 861, this time using the name Arab Nationalist Youth Organization. Fatah had been discussing convening a peace conference in Geneva; the hijacking was intended to warn them not to go ahead with it. In response, in March or July 1974, Arafat expelled Abu Nidal from Fatah.<sup>[45]</sup>

In October 1974 Abu Nidal formed the ANO, calling it Fatah: The Revolutionary Council.<sup>[46]</sup> In November that year a Fatah court sentenced him to death ''in absentia'' for the attempted assassination of Mahmoud Abbas.<sup>[47]</sup> Seale writes that it is unlikely that Abu Nidal had intended to kill Abbas, and just as unlikely that Fatah wanted to kill Abu Nidal. He was invited to Beirut to discuss the death sentence, and was allowed to leave again, but it was clear that he had become ''persona non grata''.<sup>[46]</sup> As a result, the Iraqis gave him Fatah's assets in Iraq, including a training camp, farm, newspaper, radio station, passports, overseas scholarships and $15 million worth of Chinese weapons. He also received Iraq's regular aid to the PLO: around $150,000 a month and a lump sum of $3–5 million.<sup>[48]</sup>