(2 of 2)
The killer's name was Mustafa Shukri Asho. By trade he was a tailor's apprentice. Three years ago, in the Israeli-Arab war, Mustafa, then 18, joined an Arab terrorist gang known as the Sacred Holy Fight Commando (headed by a Nazitrained demolition expert) to fight Israel. Mustafa, an American overseas cap cocked on his head, would do anything: once he drove a truckload of explosives into a Jewish section of Jerusalem, nonchalantly jumped out and watched the explosion.
But Mustafa's side lost the war. He was bitter and disillusioned. Like most Arabs of his age, he lost confidence in the older Arab leaders, and particularly hated Abdullah who, seeing how weak the other Arab states were, arranged a truce with the Jews. Mustafa went back to Jerusalem and the dull job of tailoring, ready to follow almost anyone who offered leadership, a goal, and revenge. He joined a semimilitary gang known as the "Forthcoming Salvation Army" whose aim was to regain Palestine. Its reputed sponsor: the Mufti of Jerusalem, exiled by the British in 1937, a schemer who still commands the loyalty of many Palestinian Arabs and whose ambition, shared by his protector, King Farouk of Egypt, is to crush Israel and destroy Britain's last remaining influence in the Middle East. Last week, at the Mosque of the Rock, Mustafa struck his blow for "Forthcoming Salvation," and gladly died for it.
The West calls Mustafa a "nationalist fanatic." But he is no exceptional case. Men like him are at large by the thousands from Abadan to Cairo, from Alep to Mecca. A man like Mustafa committed last week's second political murder in the Middle East, in a different cause but in the same spirit (see below). Such men are not united in their aims; they often hate each other's factions. But they have one thing in common: hatred of the West and of all Arab leaders whom they suspect of friendship for the West. Lacking political leadership in their own countries or from the West, the Mustafas are involuntarily becoming Communism's formidable allies in the Middle East.
* Securely soldered to its scabbard, to avoid incidents: before this precaution, flash-tempered Abdullah had been known to draw his dagger against subordinates.