The Abu Nidal Organization, officially Fatah – Revolutionary Council, was a Palestinian militant group founded by Abu Nidal in 1974. It broke away from Fatah, a faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization, following the emergence of a rift between Abu Nidal and Yasser Arafat. The ANO was designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union and Japan. However, a number of Arab countries supported the group's activities; it was backed by Iraq from 1974 to 1983, by Syria from 1983 to 1987, and by Libya from 1987 to 1997. It briefly cooperated with Egypt from 1997 to 1998, but ultimately returned to Iraq in December 1998, where it continued to have the state's backing until Abu Nidal's death in August 2002.
The Black September Organization (BSO) was a Palestinian militant organization founded in 1970. Besides other actions, the group was responsible for the assassination of the Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tal, and the Munich massacre, in which eleven Israeli athletes and officials were kidnapped and killed, as well as a West German policeman dying, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, their most publicized event. These attacks led to the creation or specialization of permanent counter-terrorism forces in many European countries.
Sabri Khalil al-Banna, known by his nom de guerreAbu Nidal, was a Palestinian militant. He was the founder of Fatah: The Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter group more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). Abu Nidal formed the ANO in October 1974 after a split from Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command or PFLP-GC is a Palestinian nationalist militant organisation based in Syria. It is a member the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Vienna Airport is an international airport serving Vienna, the capital of Austria. It is located in Schwechat, 18 km (11 mi) southeast of central Vienna and 57 kilometres (35 mi) west of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Its name in the Austrian Aeronautical Information Publication is Wien-Schwechat Airport. It is the country's largest airport and serves as the hub for Austrian Airlines as well as a base for low-cost carriers Ryanair and Wizz Air. It is capable of handling wide-body aircraft up to the Airbus A380. The airport features a dense network of European destinations as well as long-haul flights to Asia, North America and Africa.
The 1982 Lebanon War began on 6 June 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon. The invasion followed a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operating in southern Lebanon and the Israeli military that had caused civilian casualties on both sides of the border. This was the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon following the 1978 South Lebanon conflict.
Operation Bayonet was a covert operation directed by Mossad to assassinate individuals they accused of being involved in the 1972 Munich massacre. The targets were members of the Palestinian armed militant group Black September and operatives of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Authorised by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the autumn of 1972, the operation is believed to have continued for over twenty years. While Mossad killed several prominent Palestinians during the operation, they never managed to kill the mastermind behind Munich, namely Abu Daoud.
The 1981 Vienna synagogue attack was a terror attack that occurred 29 August 1981. The incident took place in the Stadttempel of Vienna, Austria carried out by two terrorists of the Abu Nidal Organization.
The El Al Flight 253 attack was a terrorist attack perpetrated by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) against a Boeing 707 passenger plane while it was on the ground at a stopover in Athens en route from Tel Aviv, Israel, to New York City, United States.
Events in the year 1985 in Israel.
The Achille Lauro hijacking took place on 7 October 1985, when the Italian ocean liner MS Achille Lauro was hijacked by four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) off the coast of Egypt, as she was sailing from Alexandria to Ashdod, Israel. A 69-year-old Jewish American man in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered by the hijackers and thrown overboard. The hijacking sparked the "Sigonella Crisis".
The Great Synagogue of Rome attack, which was carried out by armed Palestinian terrorists at the entrance to the Great Synagogue of Rome, took place on 9 October 1982 at 11:55 a.m. A 2-year-old toddler, Stefano Gaj Taché, was killed in the attack, while 37 civilians were injured.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization, the largest being Fatah.
On 27 July 1980, Said Al Nasr, a Syria-born Palestinian, used grenades to attack a group of 40 Jewish children waiting with their families for a bus to take them to summer camp. One boy was killed and 20 other people were wounded in the attack. The attacker was convicted.
On 19 June 1985, a bombing at the Frankfurt Airport, West Germany, killed three and wounded 74 people. A second bomb was found and defused not far from the first explosion. Two of those killed were Australian children, 2-year-old and 5-year-old siblings, and the third a Portuguese man.
On 1 July 1985, in an attack that had targeted the American Trans World Airlines offices in Madrid, Spain, the British Airways offices in the floor below were bombed, killing a woman and wounding 27 people, most of them Spanish. The bombing was followed up minutes later when gunmen opened fire with submachine guns on the Alia Royal Jordanian Airline offices some hundred yards away, injuring two people by shattered glass. Up to three grenades were thrown at the office, but failed to explode or were defused.
The 1978 Orly Airport attack was a shoot-out that took place on 20 May 1978 in the Paris Orly Airport, France as three terrorists armed with submachine guns opened fire at the El Al boarding gate. The terrorists were also reportedly carrying grenades and plastic explosives in the shoot-out that lasted for 25 minutes. Two people including one police officer were killed before the three terrorists were shot and killed by French police and Israeli security guards. Five people waiting to board a nearby Iberia flight to Malaga were wounded. The airport was evacuated for about three hours after the attack. According to Israeli sources the group behind the attack was a unit headed by Abu Nidal which cooperated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The 1973 Hellinikon International Airport attack was an attack at the Hellinikon International Airport at Athens, Greece. The two attackers were members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September. The militants used sub-machine guns and grenades against the passengers waiting in the passenger lounge. The attackers took hostages before they finally surrendered to the Greek police. It is believed that the gunmen wanted to hijack a plane, but they decided to attack when they were about to be searched by a Greek security inspector before boarding.
The Neve Shalom Synagogue massacre happened on 6 September 1986 when a group of suspected Abu Nidal Organization terrorists killed 22 worshipers inside the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey.
