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The World: Black September’s Ruthless Few

6 minute read
TIME

THE Black September terrorists take their name from the month two years ago when Jordan’s King Hussein opened his campaign to crush the Palestinian guerrillas in his country. The group is the latest and most vicious twist in the tortured search by the Palestinians for some means of revenge against Israel. At the same time, Black September, or Ailul al Aswad in Arabic, attests to the fact that ordinary guerrilla warfare against Israel, once touted as the hope of the Arabs, has been an abject failure.

That failure was starkly evident to guerrilla leaders who met last week in Damascus. Israel, by expert policing and harsh retaliation, has virtually sealed its borders against them and forced its neighbors to bring the guerrillas under control. The fedayeen are powerless in Jordan, kept on a tight rein in Syria, and restricted in Lebanon. The result is that they have been reduced to occasional random terrorism that is ruthless but scarcely effective in either overthrowing Arab leaders opposed to them or restoring Palestine to Arab control. Some Al Fatah leaders are even talking about investing in nightclubs and laundries as a hedge against the time when contributions may dry up (Saudi Arabia has not paid the organization anything in seven months).

In these circumstances, the bitterest and most extreme of the fedayeen have turned to Black September. It surfaced for the first time last November in Cairo, where four terrorists boldly assassinated Jordanian Premier Wasfi Tell as he entered the Cairo-Sheraton Hotel. Tell was a pro-Western Arab interested in negotiating with Israel; his killers are out of jail on bail awaiting a trial that has yet to be scheduled. Since that time, Black September teams have also murdered five Jordanians living in West Germany whom they suspected of spying for Israel; attempted to assassinate Jordan’s ambassador to London; and set off damaging explosions in a Hamburg plant making electronic components for sale to Israel, and a Trieste refinery whose crime apparently was processing oil for “pro-Zionist interests” in Germany and Austria. The skyjacking of a Sabena Airlines 707 jet to Israel’s Lod Airport by two men and two girls last May was another Black September operation—an unsuccessful attempt to free fedayeen prisoners from Israeli jails. The men were finally shot dead by Israeli commandos; the girls were captured and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Israeli intelligence agents say that Black September is a part of Al Fatah, founded by that organization’s leaders, in response to criticism that they had become too moderate. By pinning the blame on Al Fatah, of course, the Israelis may merely be providing themselves with a visible target for retaliation. But as they detail the structure, the organization consists of 400 to 600 members—U.S. sources put the figure closer to 100—who plan operations, then recruit rank-and-file members of Al Fatah to carry them out. According to the Israelis, the organization is headquartered in Beirut and commanded by one Mohammed Yusif Najjar, otherwise known as Abu Yusuf, who is a former top intelligence officer of Al Fatah. The Israelis claim that it is divided into four main units that are variously responsible for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas—where Black September has not yet struck.

Fedayeen leaders in Beirut insist, to the contrary, that Black September is less an organization than a state of mind. It has no flag, no symbol, no offices. Its leaders are shadowy, constantly shifting and unknown. Members are drawn from all guerrilla groups and become known only when they are killed or captured. This of course may well be a self-serving defensive explanation to avoid Israeli retribution. Since they began to brag about operations against Israel, leaders of the rival Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have fallen victim to mysterious attacks. One, Ghassan Kanafani, was blown to bits along with his niece, in Beirut in July, as he started his car. Israeli agents are suspected of planting the explosive.

Black September’s first leader was Ali Abu Iyad (real name Mohammed Mustafa Shyein), a deputy of Al Fatah Boss Yasser Arafat. Iyad was wounded, captured and executed in July 1971 after a firefight between guerrillas and Hussein’s army. But probably the organization’s best-known leader was Fuad Shemali, a Lebanese Christian who masterminded some of the group’s earlier operations before he died of cancer last month. Shemali left posthumous instructions to the terrorists to concentrate on kidnaping Israelis held in high esteem by Israelis themselves. He mentioned scholars, scientists and athletes.

Terror for Export. Black September has been difficult to combat partly because its members operate in extremely small cells. It gets its money from Al Fatah—which is largely underwritten these days by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi—as well as directly from other governments and wealthy Palestinians. Whether Arafat knows what goes on is a closely held secret. Many young commandos now consider Arafat a reactionary, and they may deliberately ignore him when laying their plans. Associates say that Arafat was genuinely surprised and upset when he was told of the assassination of Wasfi Tell—though that could have been an act to deflect criticism from himself.

One of the more frightening aspects of Black September is its ability to export terror. “They will hit anything anywhere if they believe the target is sensitive,” says a fedayeen leader. Septembrists, moreover, take pains to point out that “anywhere” includes the U.S. More than that, Black September’s planners and operatives are tougher and smarter than guerrillas have generally been in the past. They are frequently the products of the refugee camps in Jordan and Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians still live—and teach their children to hate Israel. Many went to the American University of Beirut and some are at present enrolled in European universities.

One Arab who understands the new terror—and deplores it—is Cairo Editor Mohammed Hassanein Heikal. Vacationing in Rome last week, Heikal observed: “Unfortunately, when people are desperate, they behave desperately. Many fedayeen have reached the point of desperation where they are determined not to permit the world one day’s peace. The fedayeen are curbed for the moment, but they have more manpower, are better armed and better trained than ever before. The quality of their men is better, they are dedicated and perfectly willing to die if necessary. Those boys in Munich were prepared to kill. But they were also prepared to die.” That kind of dedication adds a new dimension to terror that even the astute Israelis may have trouble handling.

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