Abu Nidal

Abu Nidal, among the most feared Palestinian terrorist leaders, is hospitalized in the Libyan capital of Tripoli with what Algerian sources described yesterday as "terminal cancer. " An Algerian medical source who recently returned from Libya denied a published report that Abu Nidal had been placed under house arrest by Libyan police in response to pressure from Egypt and the Palestine Liberation Organization. "In reality, Abu Nidal is in a military hospital in Libya suffering from a cancerous metastasis which is probably terminal," the Algerian physician told the Associated Press.

The radical Palestinian group headed by terrorist Abu Nidal said yesterday that it had executed 15 Arabs, including a woman, as spies for the United States and other governments. Younis Amran, spokesman for the Fatah-Revolutionary Council group, said the 15 were convicted of "spying and collaboration" in separate trials since November 1987. He said the group, comprising 11 Palestinians, two Egyptians, an Iraqi and a Lebanese, were executed at midnight Sunday "inside and outside Palestine.

Wherever he is, Abu Nidal is happy and feeling fulfilled. This is the assessment of Israeli intelligence and terrorism experts about the mood of the man who has become the most notorious symbol of international terrorism. Most recently, U.S. and Israeli officials have accused Abu Nidal of masterminding the terrorist attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports Dec. 27 that left 19 dead. For Abu Nidal and his supporters - the men and women who follow him and the nations that condone his terrorist attacks - the events of the last 10 days have fulfilled the goals of the airport attacks, according to Israeli officials.

Palestinian radical Abu Nidal checked out of a hotel here last week and may have left the country, ending the latest in a series of week-long visits, Western diplomats and Libyan sources said yesterday. His departure from the seafront hotel, presumably with a security retinue, could reduce chances of an Israeli or U.S. reprisal attack on the several well-known commando training bases outside the capital. Israel has charged that Abu Nidal's guerrillas, with Libyan backing, carried out the Dec. 27 airport attacks in Rome and Vienna, and has vowed to avenge them.

Several Rome newspapers reported yesterday that Italian authorities would seek an international arrest warrant for Palestinian guerrilla Abu Nidal in connection with the Dec. 27 airport attack. In an interview with the Associated Press, however, Magistrate Dominic Sica, who is heading the Italian investigation of the Rome attack, refused to confirm or deny the newspaper reports. Abu Nidal, who heads a small, violent band of guerrillas, has been linked to the Rome attack - and to an almost simultaneous and apparently coordinated attack in the Vienna airport - by the United States and Israeli governments, as well as by the only guerrilla to survive the Rome assault.

A message ostensibly from the Abu Nidal terrorist group yesterday claimed responsibility for the slaying of a British tourist in Jerusalem on Sunday, and said the killing was to avenge Britain's support for the U.S. air raids on Libya. And a man who claimed to be a spokesman for Nidal appeared on a U.S. television program last night and said the group would launch attacks on Americans, including a retired general and two government advisers, to retaliate for the air raids. Speaking on CBS News from Lebanon, Atef Abu Bakr said: "As a result of the bombing of Libya, America's military and intelligence institutions are our direct enemies.

The Abu Nidal group said yesterday that a seaborne unit of its guerrillas had seized a French-registered yacht off the Israeli-occupied Gaza strip and taken hostage eight Israelis, including two children. There was no independent confirmation of the incident or the assertion that the hostages were Israelis. Walid Khaled, described as a leader of the Palestinian group, said during a news conference that the captives were being detained at one of Abu Nidal's bases. He did not specify its location or give the date of the seizure.

Georgie Ann Geyer's Jan. 2 Op-ed article, "Take away terrorists' cause," states that Abu Nidal and other Palestinian terrorists act as they do because of humiliation, a humiliation born out of the absence of a Palestinian homeland in Israel. She adds that if we eliminate that humiliation, by extension we eliminate its product - terrorism. Ms. Geyer concludes that this will happen when a West Bank Palestinian entity is negotiated. Negotiations with Palestinians are vital to Mideast peace.

The Abu Nidal terrorist group, which is aligned with Iraq in the gulf war, maintains a support network in the United States, a senior FBI official said yesterday. William M. Baker, head of the FBI's criminal investigations branch, told the U.S. Conference of Mayors during a briefing on terrorism measures that the Abu Nidal group has an "infrastructure" in this country. It was the first time the FBI has publicly identified any particular terrorist group in connection with the agency's war-related counter-terrorism efforts.

JUST WHEN you thought that Saddam Hussein and his minions had no redeeming qualities comes word of the "suicide" of Abu Nidal as Iraqi forces were closing in to interrogate him. The quintessential terrorist, Abu Nidal was responsible for snuffing out hundreds of lives. Iraqi spokesmen insist that Abu Nidal killed himself rather than be taken into custody. They do not explain how he managed to self-inflict "multiple gunshot wounds. " No matter. It's a better world without him.

JUST WHEN you thought that Saddam Hussein and his minions had no redeeming qualities comes word of the "suicide" of Abu Nidal as Iraqi forces were closing in to interrogate him. The quintessential terrorist, Abu Nidal was responsible for snuffing out hundreds of lives. Iraqi spokesmen insist that Abu Nidal killed himself rather than be taken into custody. They do not explain how he managed to self-inflict "multiple gunshot wounds. " No matter. It's a better world without him.

The Abu Nidal terrorist group, which is aligned with Iraq in the gulf war, maintains a support network in the United States, a senior FBI official said yesterday. William M. Baker, head of the FBI's criminal investigations branch, told the U.S. Conference of Mayors during a briefing on terrorism measures that the Abu Nidal group has an "infrastructure" in this country. It was the first time the FBI has publicly identified any particular terrorist group in connection with the agency's war-related counter-terrorism efforts.

The crisis in the Middle East is like none the United States has ever faced. Saddam Hussein has rewritten the rules of modern warfare by taking thousands of Western hostages in his ruthless quest for Iraqi Lebensraum - and then by deploying them as human shields. Equally disquieting is the likelihood that the Iraqi leader has created the ultimate "fifth column": an international terrorist army, arrayed throughout the West and the Middle East, ready to strike at his command. Ominously, there are signs that he is preparing to unleash a campaign of international terrorism in hopes of breaking the quarantine and military buildup that has isolated Iraq and is strangling its economy.

The French government responded to mounting criticism today by insisting it had not dealt with terrorists in negotiating the release of a French woman, her Belgian companion and their child. The three were released in Lebanon by Abu Nidal's Libyan-backed Palestinian terrorist group yesterday after 2 1/2 years in captivity and flown to France, spending the night at a military hospital outside Paris. Jacqueline Valente, 32, Fernand Houtekins, 43, who arrived with their 2- year-old daughter Sophie-Liberte, made no public statements upon their arrival, refusing to discuss conditions of their captivity or where they were held.

The face of communism may be changing, but the face of Middle East terrorism is not. The brutal assault by armed terrorists on a civilian bus traveling between Israel and Egypt proves the point. Once again, Israel has paid a heavy price, a reminder to the world that it is still fighting for its life. In the last three months, three different incidents, all connected to the PLO, show that it continues through its labyrinth of organizations to incite and conduct terror against Israel, not only in the occupied territories but even in areas within the pre-1967 borders.

Abu Nidal, among the most feared Palestinian terrorist leaders, is hospitalized in the Libyan capital of Tripoli with what Algerian sources described yesterday as "terminal cancer. " An Algerian medical source who recently returned from Libya denied a published report that Abu Nidal had been placed under house arrest by Libyan police in response to pressure from Egypt and the Palestine Liberation Organization. "In reality, Abu Nidal is in a military hospital in Libya suffering from a cancerous metastasis which is probably terminal," the Algerian physician told the Associated Press.

The radical Palestinian group headed by terrorist Abu Nidal said yesterday that it had executed 15 Arabs, including a woman, as spies for the United States and other governments. Younis Amran, spokesman for the Fatah-Revolutionary Council group, said the 15 were convicted of "spying and collaboration" in separate trials since November 1987. He said the group, comprising 11 Palestinians, two Egyptians, an Iraqi and a Lebanese, were executed at midnight Sunday "inside and outside Palestine.

Remember the past two weeks of hullabaloo about the Libyan plant that's primed to produce poison gas? Remember former President Ronald Reagan's hint that the United States might bomb it? Remember how the Reagan administration slammed West Germany for letting private companies sell Moammar Gadhafi the raw materials? Well, hold on to your seats, folks. In a move that rivals the U.S. arms sales to Iran in hypocrisy, Mr. Reagan modified trade restrictions against Libya on the day before he left office to let American oil companies resume operations there.

Palestinian radicals, who said they had released two French children they were holding since last year, said today that Abu Nidal himself bade the two girls farewell before they left for Paris. Walid Khaled, spokesman for the radical Fatah-Revolutionary Council, headed by the reputed terrorist Nidal, said yesterday that it had freed the girls, aged 6 and 7, who were on their way to Paris. But there has been no report of their arrival in France. Khaled refused to say where the girls were released or to specify the flight they were on. There had been widespread speculation the girls would be freed in Libya or Algeria.

AL FATAH: Founded 1959, it is the core component of the PLO. Leader: Yasir Arafat. Military arm: Al-Asifa. Terrorist attacks in early 1970s by Black September group, including the 1972 assault on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, were attributed to Fatah, but were never acknowledged by it. POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE (PFLP): Founded 1967. Leader: George Habash. Espouses a revolutionary socialist Palestinian nation. Reconciled with Arafat in 1987 after 4-year estrangement.