Palestinian Popular Struggle Front

PSF

12/12/2006

The Palestinian Popular Struggle Front was founded as an ideological splinter group of al-Fatah and the PLO. The PSF has since split and then re-joined al-Fatah and the PLO many times since its inception in 1967. The PSF's original leaders were Dr. Samir Ghawshah and Bahjat Abu Gharbiah. They founded the Islamic terrorist group in the West Bank before the 1967 War. By the late 1980s, Samir Ghawshah had firmly allied himself with Yasser Arafat and al-Fatah. He is still a fixture on the Palestinian political scene, holding several positions for the Palestinian Authority including Minister for Jerusalem Affairs and PLO Executive Council Member.

The Palestinian Popular Struggle Front has had its headquarters in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The group's most prominent attack was their 1970 hijacking of an Olympic Airways jet to Cairo. With the Red Cross mediating, the group successfully negotiated for the release of a number of terrorists, including PSF member Mildos Dergarabedian, who carried out the group's earlier attack on Israeli Airline El Al's offices in Athens and Mansour Marad, who later became a member of the Jordanian parliament.