The Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) is the most common name for the Palestinian nationalist militant group Fatah – The Revolutionary Council. The ANO is named after its founder Abu Nidal. It was created by a split from Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO in 1974. The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, Canada, and the European Union.
MS Achille Lauro was a cruise ship based in Naples, Italy. Built between 1939 and 1947 as MS Willem Ruys, a passenger liner for the Rotterdamsche Lloyd, it was hijacked by members of the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985.
Muhammad Zaidan, also known as Abu AbbasAH-boo ə-BAHSS or Muhammad Abbas, was the founder and a leader of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) Organization.
The Palestinian Liberation Front is a Palestinian political faction. Since 1997, the PLF has been a designated terrorist organization by the United States and by Canada since 2003. The PLF has also been banned in Japan.
Leon Klinghoffer was an American man who was shot, killed and thrown overboard from the cruise ship Achille Lauro by members of the Palestinian Liberation Front who hijacked the ship in 1985.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1985.
EgyptAir Flight 648 was a regularly scheduled international flight between Athens Ellinikon International Airport (Greece) and Cairo International Airport (Egypt). On 23 November 1985, a Boeing 737-200 airliner, registered SU-AYH, servicing the flight was hijacked by the terrorist organization Abu Nidal. The subsequent raid on the aircraft by Egyptian troops killed 56 of the 86 passengers, 2 of the 3 hijackers and 2 of the 6 crew, making the hijacking of Flight 648 one of the deadliest such incidents in history.
Unit 777, also known as Task Force 777, is an Egyptian military counter-terrorism and special operations unit. It was created in 1978 by the government of Anwar Sadat in response to concerns of increased terrorist activity following the expulsion of Soviet military advisors from the country by Sadat and his efforts to achieve peace with Israel.
Naval Air Station (NAS) Sigonella is an Italian Air Force base, and a U.S. Navy installation at Italian Air Force Base Sigonella in Sicily, Italy. The whole NAS is a tenant of the Italian Air Force, which has the military and the administrative control. It serves as an Italian base for the 41º Stormo Antisom . NAS Sigonella acts also as landlord to more than 40 other U.S. commands and activities. It is located 15 km (8 NM) west and 11 km (6 NM) south of the city of Catania, and some 40 km (22 NM) south of Mount Etna.
Farouk al-Kaddoumi, also known by his kunya, Abu al-Lutf, was until 2009 Secretary-General and between 2004 and 2009 Chairman of Fatah's central committee and the Palestine Liberation Organization's political department, operating from Tunisia.
The Death of Klinghoffer is an American opera, with music by John Adams to an English-language libretto by Alice Goodman. First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the hijackers' murder of a 69-year-old Jewish-American wheelchair-using passenger, Leon Klinghoffer.
VF-74, Fighter Squadron 74, Be-Devilers was an aviation unit of the United States Navy in service from 1944 to 1994. Originally established as VBF-20 on 16 April 1945, it was redesignated as VF-10A on 15 November 1946, redesignated as VF-92 on 12 August 1948, redesignated as VF-74 on 15 January 1950 and disestablished on 30 April 1994. It was the third US Navy squadron to be designated as VF-74.
Victory at Entebbe is a 1976 American made-for-television action-drama film for broadcast on ABC, directed by Marvin J. Chomsky. The film starred Helmut Berger, Linda Blair, Anthony Hopkins, Burt Lancaster, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Dreyfuss, and Kirk Douglas. Julius Harris portrayed Idi Amin, following the fatal heart attack suffered by the actor originally cast in the role, Godfrey Cambridge. The film was theatrically released in Europe.
Klinghoffer is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Monzer al-Kassar, also known as the "Prince of Marbella", is an international arms dealer. He has been connected to numerous crimes, including the Achille Lauro hijacking and the Iran-Contra scandal. On November 20, 2008, he was convicted in U.S. federal court as part of a U.S. government sting, for agreeing to sell arms to undercover agents posing as suppliers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Colombian guerrilla organization. He was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment.
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 Hijacking of the Achille Lauro is a 1989 American drama television film written and directed by Robert L. Collins. The film stars Karl Malden, Lee Grant, E. G. Marshall, and Vera Miles. It focuses on the action and emotional impact of the 1985 terrorist incident that took the life of Leon Klinghoffer.
The hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 615 was an act of Palestinian terrorism that occurred on 29 October 1972 and aimed at the liberation of the three surviving perpetrators of the Munich massacre from a West German prison.
Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is a role-playing game published by Task Force Games in 1986.
