By Way of Deception

BY WAY OF DECEPTION 185baggage check-in, staying with him long enough to make sure hewas headed for his flight. They may have imagined that Akbarwould be the only Palestinian headed for Rome, but he wasn't.As the Mossad discovered years later in the documents seizedduring the Lebanese war, another man, a PLO member, spottedAkbar with the stranger at the airport, then alertly followed thekatsa and saw him join his partner in the cafeteria. Incredibly, thetwo men, who should have long since left the airport building,broke into a conversation in Hebrew, at which point the PLO manheaded directly to the phone to call Rome and report that Akbarwas not clean.Akbar and the Mossad would pay dearly for the sloppiness of Itsikand his partner.* * *Ali Hassan Salameh, better known as Abu Hassan, and called theRed Prince by the Mossad, was a dashing, adventure-seekingcharacter whose second wife was Lebanese beauty GeorginaRizak, the 1971 Miss Universe. As brutal as he was smart, he hadmasterminded the Munich atrocity. Now, he decided to useRussian-made Strella missiles — called SA-7 by the Soviets andcode-named "Grail" by NATO — to blow up Golda Meir's plane asit landed at Rome's Fiumicino airport.The missiles, based on the U.S. Redeye missile system, werepropelled at their targets through a 10.6 kg. launcher, hand-heldand slung over the shoulder. The 9.2 kg. missile itself has a solid,three-stage rocket motor, an infra-red passive guidance system,and a maximum range of 3.5 km. As missiles go, it's notparticularly sophisticated, but it can be deadly, finding its targetby homing in on the exhaust pipes of hot engines. When shot athighly maneuverable, fast fighter jets, its lack of flexibility rendersit useless most of the time. But when aimed at slow and largetargets such as passenger jetliners, it is lethal.Finding a supply of Strellas was no problem. The PLO had them intheir training camps inside Yugoslavia, so all that was needed wasa way to smuggle them across the Adriatic