Salah Khalaf
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Salah Khalaf (Arabic صلاح خلف), also known as Abu Iyad (Arabic أبو إياد) (born 1933 – January 14, 1991) was deputy chief and head of intelligence for the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the second most senior official of Fatah after Yasser Arafat. He was assassinated in Tunis in 1991 by an Abu Nidal operative.
Early career
Khalaf was born in Jaffa, but in 1948 fled to Gaza with his family when the city fell to Israeli militias. He was typical of the Palestinian refugees who was outraged by the Israeli occupation. In the 1950s, he moved to study Arabic language at the Al-Azhar University, he be-friended of a young engineering student named Yasser Arafat (known as Abu Ammar) who became the militant head of the fledgling Association of Palestinian Students. The APS would grew in future decades to an umbrella organization of exiled Palestinian students working for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), especially in Europe, and became a recruiting ground for terrorists.Khalaf moved to Kuwait in the late 1950s and helped him form the Palestine National Liberation Movement, al-Fatah along with Arafat and others. Throughout the 1960s Fatah became an organized replacement of the fidayun, most of whose groups had disintegrated following the 1956 Suez War.
The Attrition Raids
Following the 1967 Six Day War, Fatah and rival organizations expanded their strategy of low-level conflict with the Israelis that comprised small raids. This was in the framework of the Arab states Syria and Egypt's artillery and commando operations across the Suez Canal and Golan Heights that became known as the War of Attrition. Fatah's largest rival, the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine resorted to sensationalist tactics, in particularly airline hijackings, that would gain world attention. Both strategies were part of an increased role of the PLO groups following the exhaustion of the Arab states' military initiative in the Six Day War.On March 21, 1968 Arafat and his closest colleagues, including Salah Khalaf, were almost killed in a large scale Israeli raid on the refugee camp Karameh near the Allenby Bridge in Jordan. They obliterated the PLO positions in the camp, and the leaders barely escaped. This was a major victory to Fatah along with a Jordanian column that reinforced them.
Ironically, following Karameh some Palestinian factions abused the great popularity the Palestinian cause gained through the event by subverting the conservative government of King Hussein of Jordan. Khalaf warned Arafat that this would lead to tragedy, as he was aware that the King's patience was not unlimited.
Black September
On September 6, 1970 the PFLP hijacked three airline flights to deserted Dawson's Field, near Zarqa, Jordan, an event that humiliated Hussein, and set into motion the climax of tensions between him and the PLO. All through that month the PFLP, DFLP, and PFLP-General Command had launched several abortive assassination attempts on him. On September 16, 1970 he declared martial law and the Royal Jordanian Army assaulted all PLO positions throughout the kingdom. Already before the outbreak of the official hostilities over a thousand had died in confrontations between the PLO groups and the army between February and July 1970.By July 1971 the Jordanian action had come to an end with a decisive victory for the King, despite an attempted Syrian armoured incursion on the PLO's side, several ceasefires, and the condemnations of the Arab League. The events of Black September would push the PLO to new extremes. Salah Khalaf headed a new sub-organization of Fatah meant to carry out clandestine revenge activities against Jordan and Israel, whose air force had flown over the Syrian reinforcements and forced them to turn back.
The group would be called Black September, and would be supervised by Khalaf. Khalaf at this time increased his cooperation with the more extreme organizations within the PLO. Operatives of the PFLP also were often "borrowed" from the with the consent of the group's founder George Habash.
They began their struggle with the assassination of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi al-Tal on November 28, 1971 at the Cairo Sheraton. They followed that up with a bombing on an oil storage facility in Italy, the Munich Massacre, numerous assaults on airlines and other transportation vehicles, and finally the seizure of the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, and the American Embassy in Khartoum.
It was the last action that finally proved their link with Fatah once and for all, when one of the hostage takers' handlers in Khartoum fled the city before the seizure of the embassy neglecting to take the documents signed by Khalaf himself authorizing the action. The murder of three diplomats, two Americans and a Belgian sparked world-wide condemnation of Black September.
It also resulted in the Israeli Operation Spring of Youth, a raid on the Beirut apartment building of Najjar, Kemal Adwan, and PLO spokesman Kemal Nasser. The deaths of the three were part of a wider scale operation by the Mossad to eliminate the senior operatives of the group. It isn't clear whether Khalaf was targeted, and he might have been deliberately omitted due to his moderating influence on Arafat.
By 1974, Black September gradually disintegrated. Yet Khalaf had by then moved into another field of activities for Fatah. He had been put in charge of preventing the splintering of new factions from Fatah. One of the groups that in 1974 did leave Fatah was called the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, and was led by Khalaf's former friend Sabri al-Banna (Abu Nidal). The resulting blood feud would have tragic results.
Survival in Fatahland
Following the migration of most of the PLO's organizations to Lebanon from Jordan in 1970, Khalaf and Arafat's right-hand man Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) spearheaded the reconstruction of the groups' infrastructure in southern Lebanon. They succeeded to such a degree that the area was nicknamed Fatahland by the international press as well as disgruntled locals. Khalaf, as opposed to his stance against PLO confrontation with Hussein, was an advocate of strengthening Fatah ties with the Lebanese National Movement, a group of leftist, primarily Sunni Muslim Lebanese opposed to the conservative Maronite rulers of Lebanon. The Maronites, led by former Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh called on Syrian President Hafez al-Assad for help. Paranoid of an independent Lebanon that would diminish his influence, he answered the call.On December 6, 1975 four members of the Maronite Falange militia were found dead in parked cars in East Beirut, sparking an immediate rage known as Black Saturday. This is cited as the official commencement of the Lebanese Civil War. Khalaf was among those accused of ordering the murders of the four, though the identity of the true killers was never determined.
On January 18, 1976 the Syrian Army and Maronite militias Falange (Pierre Gemayel), the Tigers (Camille Chamoun), and Manara (Suleiman Franjieh) broke through the defences of Karantina refugee camp in East Beirut, the first of a series of atrocities committed by both sides. At Karantina over a thousand Palestinian refugees were murdered. During the prolonged siege and subsequent massacre at Tel al-Zaatar that ended on August 12, 1976 between 1 and 4 thousand were killed, while during the PLO-LNM assault on the Christian seaside town of Damour on January 20, 1976 hundreds were killed and the rest expelled. The bloodbath divided the Arab world even more, not to mention the sectarian society of Lebanon.
The cross-border raids into Israel would also be answered, when on March 14, 1978, 10 years minus one week to the anniversary of Damour the Israelis launched Operation Litani a large incursion into the zone south of the river that was its namesake. Afterward Khalaf and Wazir rapidly rebuilt the Fatah infrastructure in the area, and the only noticeable change from the status-quo-ante was the entrance of the UN Internation Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The action was a precursor to the 1982 Operation Peace for the Galilee, an incursion masterminded by Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon. This was in retaliation for the June 3 assassination attempt on Israeli Ambassador to London Shlomo Argov. The Israeli forces placed the PLO under siege in West Beirut. A deal was struck to end the siege and the PLO headquarters was moved to Tunis. On September 16 the Sabra and Shatila massacre was committed by Elie Hobeika's Damour Brigade of the Falange supported by Ariel Sharon. It brought massive international opposition to the Israeli presence in Lebanon.
The War of the Camps
In the course of 1983 new divisions formed within Fatah. The main catalyst was dissatisfaction with Arafat's performance during the fight against the Israelis. Arafat had agreed to a withdrawal from Lebanon in 1982, negotiated by the US and France, and secured by Marines and French peacekeepers. However, in 1983 Arafat returned to Lebanon and settled in Tripoli.Many field commanders in Fatah wanted to overthrow the middle aged Jerusalmite who had led the group since its formation in the 1950s. The most conspicuous was Said al-Muragha (Abu Musa), a young colonel in Fatah's armed wing who became the leader of the mutiny against Arafat. Muragha was also drawing support from hardliners who feared Arafat was becoming desperate, and would agree to negotiate with the Israelis. Khalaf was respected by almost everyone in Fatah as an efficient commander, and was therefore recruited by both sides due to the support he could attract. Khalaf remained loyal to Arafat, despite his opposition to many of Arafat's corrupt and abusive methods as head of the organization.
At the start of the 1984-85 War of the Camps, Arafat and his colleagues were considered by the majority of Palestinians to be corrupt and too compromising. With the subjective, rhetorical images that many participants in the internal struggles had of each other, it was easy for Arafat's opponents to portray him as a collaborator with the CIA.
Most of the splinter groups in the PLO, including the PFLP, DFLP, and others stayed neutral in the War of the Camps. Others, like as-Saiqa, the PFLP-General Command, and Fatah-Revolutionary Council, all of whom were under the patronage of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad allied themselves with Muragha's Fatah-Intifadeh (Uprising), and were aided by the Syrian Army. Khalaf and Khalil al-Wazir rallied the loyalists and were aided by the more anti-Syrian segments of Lebanese society. In the sequel to the events that started with Bloody Saturday, the loyalists were outnumbered and besieged. Israel intervened when Syrian forces came too close to the southern Lebanon security zone, and once again besieged Beirut.
Exiled to Tunis
Though Arafat was forced out of Lebanon in 1982, his underdog status in the War of the Camps repaired his image, and in an ironic twist Muragha soon was put in the role of a collaborator, this time with the Syrians. The heavy bloodshed of his alliance's bombardment of the refugee camps vaporized most of the support he had from their residents, and most of the factions of the PLO rallied back to Arafat.Tunisia provided haven to the Fatah leadership, and Khalaf quickly reestablished himself there. On April 18, 1988, in response to casualties they suffered in the First Intifadeh, the Israelis launched an operation similar to Spring of Youth against Khalil al-Wazir. The amphibious commando force stunned the PLO, being it was the longest range commando attack by the Israelis since Operation Johnathan in Uganda on July 4, 1976. Al-Wazir had been the coordinator of activities between the leadership in Tunis and Fatah groups that had formed in the West Bank and Gaza. He was held directly responsible fot the Palestinian uprising. The security details around Arafat and Khalaf were tightened in order to prevent a repeat.
The Final Betrayal
In the end, it was Arafat's most loyal lieutenant who paid the price for the PLO leader's long standing grudges with rival faction leaders. His assassination is described in detail by British author Patrick Seale, as are its causes.On January 14, 1991 Khalaf was at Hayel Abdul Hamid's (Abu El- Hol) place when one of Abu El-Hol's bodyguards succeeded in getting in a room with Khalaf along witk Abu Mohammed El Omary and Abu El-Hol, whereupon he riddled the chief with bullets from his submachine gun. A hostage situation proceeded, as he toyed with the Tunis police over the lives of Abdul Hamid's wife and family. The assassin was a mole planted in Fatah by Sabri al-Banna, better known as Abu Nidal.
The murder of Salah Khalaf shocked even the most jaded Palestinians as a cruel and ruthless act. Though Khalaf had made many enemies over the years, even most of them had valued him as an able commander, a dedicated scourge of the Israelis, and most importantly a moderate who was opposed to intra-Palestinian feuding. Khalaf had been integral to establishing covert contacts with the US State Department in the 1970s, the gradual cooling of tensions with Jordan in that decade, and negotiations for both Fatah withdrawals from Lebanon. While many faction leaders loathed Arafat, they admired Khalaf's loyalty to his old friend, as well as his tolerance toward them. The exception was Abu Nidal, a jealous rival of Khalaf, ironically also from Jaffa, who also had been at Karameh. Most accounts hold that Abu Nidal cowered in the trenches during th battle, though the rhetorical and subjective content from the Palestinian sources prevent the real truth from being known. Abu Nidal seethed from the rumours that were whispered behind his back about his performance under pressure in Karameh, and longed for the day to redeem his name.
In 1974, while serving as the head of the Fatah branch in Baghdad, Iraq, Abu Nidal announced that he had formed his own organization, Fatah-Revolutionary Council, after a long series of moves he made to eliminate Arafat loyalists in Iraq, often through murder. The negotiations between him and Fatah before his defection were handled by Khalaf, his one-time friend. Doomed to fail anyway, the parley was ended when al-Banna laughed at Abu Nidal's cowardice at Karameh, sending the seething Abu Nidal storming out of the room. The Fatah-RC proceeded to be one of the more extreme and indiscriminate terror groups in the world, though more of their casualties were Arabs than were Israelis. On numerous occasions al-Banna attempted to kill Arafat, Khalaf, al-Wazir, or other Palestinian leaders, but Arafat would outlive him in the end.
Legacy
Though Abu Iyad's life seemed to be indistinct from those of hundreds of other Palestinian terrorists of the 20th Century, his death had a profound impact on the movement, and closed a chapter in its history. Khalaf, al-Wazir, and Arafat had been the triumvirate that had led Fatah's armed wing since its formation in the 1950s. Whereas before Khalaf's death, he had been the clearest successor to Arafat as head of Fatah and the PLO, and before him Wazir, afterward the title had no clear holder, and became one more prize that the PLO's numerous warlords clashed over. Within Fatah, the leaders of the armed struggle became the village insurgents in the West Bank and Gaza of the First Intifadeh, Marwan Barghouti and Muhammad Dahlan, both of whom bare resemblance to the late Khalaf. To the contrary, the militants who lived in Tunis became the corrupt caricatures he loathed so much, and formed the corrupt leadership of the Palestinian Authority after the Oslo Accords.Fatah's adoption of negotiation as a tactic was largely thanks to Khalaf, who had always viewed it is a possible means of saving lives instead of endless attrition with Israel. Yet it was his Black September organization that in the 1970s branded as a traitor anyone who even suggested the option among the Arab leaders. After the War of the Camps, however, he clearly took a stand as a dove, in direct contrast to George Habash and Ahmed Jibril who opposed any compromise or cease fire.
In Fall 1990, he broke with Arafat within the PLO on the issue of support for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, accurately predicting that it would isolate the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the West, while their old allies in the USSR were clearly disintegrating. The beginning of Operation Desert Storm, was the beginning of the nightmare vision that would months later prove him right. The death of Khalaf removed a factor who may have given more flexibility on the Palestinian side in the Madrid Conference, the Oslo Accords and resulting negotiations. Instead, extremists continued to hold the initiative on many issues, and doves within the PLO to this day must layer their opinions with token defiant diatribes against Israel in order not to be considered collaborators, especially given the rise of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
References
- Seale, Patrick. Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire. Hutchinson, 1992.
- Bar-Zohar, Michael and Eitan Haber. The Quest for the Red Prince. Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir, Or Yehuda: 1984, 2005.
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