Posted on 12/06/2005 10:03:14 AM PST by WayneLusvardi
Saddam Surat # 5 Abu Nidal's Terrorism Run Out of Saddams Personal Office
Iraqs dealings with terrorist groups such as those run by Abu Nidal and Wadi Haddad were handled by Saddams personal office, and it was as a direct result of Saddams support for these internationally condemned terrorist groups in the 1970s that the U.S. State Department added Iraqs name to the list of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism.
Another infamous Palestinian terrorist who was harbored by Saddam during this period was Dr. Wadi Haddad, one of the founding members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the PLO group responsible for turning the Palestinian cause into a vehicle for international terrorism in the early 1979s
Haddad moved to Baghdad in 1972, where he formed the splinter Special Operations Group. It was from there that he organized the infamous kidnapping of OPEC oil ministers during their meeting in Vienna in December 1975 and the hijacking of an Israeli airliner in Entebbe, Uganda. One of Haddads closest associates during this period was Carlos the Jackal. In addition to staging their own terrorist operations, Haddads organization linked up with a wide variety of European terrorist groups, including Germanys Baader-Meinhof gang and the Japanese Red Army. According to an Iraqi defector
at least fifty members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) continued to reside in Iraq until the 1990s, and made frequent use of the Mukhabarats terrorist training facilities
.When Haddad died, of natural causes, in 1978, he was buried in Baghdad with full military honors.
Excerpt from Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall (2005)
Great idea backhoe. I will do it on the next one.
WL
Just found this after reading Coughlin’s chapter on Terrorism last night. Can you possibly post the original link for this Wayne so I can try to link to you from www.regimeofterror.com?
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