Editing Abu Nidal Organization (section)

==Formation and background==
{{Main|Abu Nidal}}

The Abu Nidal Organization was established by [[Abu Nidal|Sabri Khalil al-Bannah (Abu Nidal)]], known by his ''[[nom de guerre]]'' Abu Nidal, a Palestinian [[Arab nationalism|Arab nationalist]] and a former [[Ba'ath party]] member. Abu Nidal long argued that PLO membership should be open to all [[Arabs]], not just Palestinians. He also argued that Palestine must be established as an Arab state, stretching from the [[Jordan River]] in the east to the [[Mediterranean Sea]] in the west.<ref name=":0" /> Abu Nidal established his faction within the PLO, just prior to [[Black September]] in Jordan, and following internal disagreements within the PLO. During Fatah's Third Congress in Damascus in 1971, he emerged as the leader of a leftist alliance against [[Yasser Arafat]]. After the 1973 [[Yom Kippur War]], many members of the mainstream [[Fatah]] movement argued that a political solution with Israel should be an option. Consequently, Abu Nidal split from Fatah in 1974 and formed his "rejectionist" front to carry on a [[Pan-Arabism|Pan-Arabist]] armed struggle.<ref name=":0" /> 

Abu Nidal's first independent operation took place on September 5, 1973, when five gunmen using the name ''Al-Iqab'' ("The Punishment") seized the Saudi embassy in Paris, taking 11 hostages and threatening to blow up the building if Abu Dawud was not released from jail in Jordan, where he had been arrested in February 1973 for an attempt on [[Hussein of Jordan|King Hussein]]'s life.<ref name=Melman69>Melman 1986, p. 69.</ref> Following the incident, [[Mahmoud Abbas]] of the PLO took flight to Iraq to meet Abu Nidal. In the meeting Abbas became so angry, that he stormed out of the meeting, followed by the other PLO delegates, and from that point on, the PLO regarded Abu Nidal as a mercenary.<ref name=Seale92>Seale 1992, p. 92.</ref>

Two months later, just after the October 1973 [[Yom Kippur War]], during discussions about convening a peace conference in Geneva, the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) hijacked a KLM airliner, using the name of the Arab Nationalist Youth Organization. The operation was intended to send a signal to Fatah not to send representatives to any peace conference. In response, Arafat officially expelled Abu Nidal from Fatah in March 1974, and the rift between the two groups, and the two men, was complete.<ref name=Melman70>Melman 1986, p. 70.</ref> In June the same year, ANO formed the [[Rejectionist Front]], a political coalition that opposed the Ten Point Program adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in its 12th Palestinian National Congress session.<ref>Chakhtoura, Maria, ''La guerre des graffiti'', Beyrouth, Éditions Dar an-Nahar, 2005, page 136.</ref>

Abu Nidal then moved to [[Ba'athist Iraq]] where he set up the ANO, which soon began a string of terrorist attacks aimed at Israel and Western countries. Setting himself up as a freelance contractor, Abu Nidal is believed by the United States Department of State to have ordered attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring over 900 people.<ref name=StateDeptprofile>[http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/abu.htm "Abu Nidal Organization"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050207025513/http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/abu.htm |date=February 7, 2005 }}, Country Reports on Terrorism, 2004. [[United States Department of State]], 2005.</ref> The ANO group's most notorious attacks were on the [[El Al]] ticket counters at [[Rome and Vienna Airport Attacks|Rome and Vienna]] airports in December 1985, when Arab gunmen high on amphetamines opened fire on passengers in simultaneous shootings, killing 18 and wounding 120. [[Patrick Seale]], Abu Nidal's biographer, wrote of the attacks that their "random cruelty marked them as typical Abu Nidal operations."<ref name=Seale243>Seale 1992, pp. 243–244.</ref>