Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

MAY 19 COMMUNIST COALITION • 423splinter group from the original Popular Front for the Liberationof Palestine (PFLP). Formerly led by Abu Ibrahim, May 15 washeadquartered in Baghdad, Iraq.The May 15 group carried out seven operations under its ownname from 1978 to 1985, in which seven people were killed and 43others injured. May 15 specialized in making sophisticated, barometricallytriggered bombs used to destroy civilian air carriers, includingTokyo-to-Honolulu Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) Flight830 on 11 August 1982, which exploded just before landing, killingone person. Abu Ibrahim, his aide Mohammad Rashid, and Rashid’swife, Christine “Fatima” Pinter, were indicted for the bombing ofPan Am Flight 830 in 1987 based on evidence that Rashid and hiswife had submitted visa applications that enabled them to plant thebomb on the plane before it continued on the Japan-to-Honolulu legof its flight. While Rashid was arrested in Greece on a false passportcharge, the government there refused to extradite him to the UnitedStates; he was tried and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment for theairline bombing in 1992 but was released in 1996 for good behavior.Rashid was handed over to the United States in June 1998 by anundisclosed nation, presumed by some to have been Egypt, and wasarraigned for trial on 3 June 1998.In the period 1980–1982, the May 15 group carried out five bombingsagainst El Al offices, the Israeli embassy in Athens, a Jewishrestaurant in West Berlin, and the Mount Royal hotel in London, killingtwo people and injuring 15. On 2 April 1986 the May 15 groupbombed Rome-to-Athens Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 840,killing four people. On 15 February 1984 a letter bomb sent by theMay 15 group exploded, maiming Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hujjatulislam‘Ali Akbar Muhtashami, who was intimately involved inoverseeing the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and whom the May 15group regarded as a gratuitous meddler in intra-Arab affairs.Very little is known about this organization. It appears that manyof its 50–60 members eventually joined other groups, including Hawari,and that the May 15 group ceased to be active after 1986.MAY 19 COMMUNIST COALITION. The May 19 Communist Coalitionwas an outreach umbrella organization created as a front forthe Revolutionary Armed Task Force (RATF), itself a merger ofthe remnants of the Weather Underground and Black Liberation