Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

86 • BLACK SEPTEMBER ORGANIZATIONFrom 1971 to 1974 the BSO carried out at least 34 noteworthyactions, including 16 bombings, 11 assassinations, three hijackings,three kidnappings, and a rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut.On 5 September 1973 Italian police foiled a BSO plot to shoot downan El Al airplane with two SAM-7 Strela antiaircraft missiles. Israel,whose citizens and diplomats abroad had become the primary targetsof the BSO assassination and letter-bombing campaigns, undertookcovert and overt operations to quash the BSO. Israeli Wrath of Godoperatives began killing BSO operatives in Cyprus and Europe, whilethe Israeli Defense Forces launched a raid on Beirut on 10 April 1973in which they attacked the BSO headquarters, killing 17 terrorists,and destroyed the BSO letter-bomb factory.Despite al Fatah’s desire to conceal its connections with theBSO, the arrests of a BSO agent in Jordan and another in Franceproduced evidence linking the two organizations. Although theBSO was dissolved by al Fatah in December 1974, many formerBSO operatives then joined either the PFLP or Abu Nidal’s FatahRevolutionary Council. The murder of Israeli diplomat YosefAlon in December 1975 in Washington, D.C., was once believed tobe the work of local proxies acting on behalf of Black September.From 1981 to 1987 about 17 actions were claimed in the name ofthe BSO, but these were most likely the work of Abu Nidal operatives.In 1996 Mohammad Oudeh (aka Abu Daoud), the mastermindof the Munich Olympics attack, was allowed by Israeli authoritiesto attend a PLO leadership meeting in the West Bank, where hestayed, establishing a law practice in Ramallah. After he publishedhis autobiography in France, in which he acknowledged his rolein the Black September attack at the Munich Olympics, Germanauthorities issued an arrest warrant for him in June 1999. Upon receivingword of this, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu orderedOudeh, who was in Jordan at the time, barred from returning to theWest Bank and also canceled his VIP pass, which was issued toPLO officials to permit them unhindered passage through Israelicheckpoints in the West Bank. For many Palestinians and Israelis,this incident raised the question of whether this action violated anunderstanding of amnesty implicit in the 1996 Israeli governmentdecision to allow former PLO terrorists to return to areas underPalestinian Authority control.