Editing Abu Nidal (section)

=== 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>