1981

Islamic Terrorism Timeline

11/16/2006

- January 1, 1981: A car bomb explosion in Limassol, Cyprus maimed Hamid Hindi, 52, a Syrian publisher who once served in his nation's Cabinet. Police arrested Moshe Bavli, an Israeli of French origin and a Swiss resident with a Canadian passport as a suspect. There was speculation in the press that he was an Israeli agent avenging the New Year's Eve bombing of the Jewish-owned hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. The Kenyan government had accused a Moroccan citizen who was also a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hamid Hindi was one of the founders of the PFLP.

- January 20, 1981: Now embroiled in a war with America's dictatorial ally Iraq, Iran traded American Embassy hostages for U.S. missiles. With the proceeds used to finance rebels in Nicaragua, the exchange was called the Iran-Contra affair. The 52 Americans who were released had been held prisoner by the fundamentalist Islamic clerics for 444 days. This day, not so coincidently, was Reagan's inaugural.

- January 21, 1981: Danish police reported that the Copenhagen manager of Israel's El Al Airlines was badly beaten in his office by an intruder who painted swastikas on the walls.

- January 23, 1981: A pipe bomb exploded in the basement of the New York State Supreme Court Building in lower Manhattan. A caller, identifying himself as a member of the Croatian Freedom Fighters, telephoned UPI and warned that a "bomb would go off somewhere in the city." He claimed that his group was "protesting the American government's ignorance and approval of Yugoslavian persecution of Croatian dissidents." These merciless Catholic goons in league with Islam had slaughtered 850,000 Christian Serbs and Jews in genocidal rage and they were protesting the treatment they were receiving by a second-rate socialist. It's enough to make you want to scream. Ignorant indeed.

- January 26, 1981: A bomb exploded at an Iranian bank in San Francisco. A caller from the Jewish Defense League falsely claimed credit for the attack, stating that it was in protest for "the persecution of Iranian Jewry." If that were true, the complaint at least was valid. Iran expelled tens of thousands of Jews in 1948, stealing their homes, land, businesses, and personal property. They actually did to the Jews what the Palestinians falsely claim was done to them.

The same day as the attack on the Iranian bank, another man called the media claiming that the "American Revenge Committee," was responsible. He said they were protesting Iran's treatment American hostages. The caller claimed the group would continue bombing Iranian targets and threatened to kill Khomeini supporters. FBI investigators took the threats seriously because the ARC caller gave "certain authenticators which indicating intimate knowledge of the bombing.

- January, 1981: Iraq repelled the first major Iranian offensive of the Iran-Iraq war, but at a staggering loss of life.

- February 6, 1981: In armed assault on an official car of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut was claimed by Eagles of the Revolution. The ER were a manifestation of Al Saiqa, which was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the PLO under the command of Syrians.

- February 6, 1981: Two young Communists armed with submachine guns, hijacked a Colombian jetliner and threatened to kill its crewmembers unless they were flown to Mexico or Panama. The hijackers allowed the 60 passengers to disembark but held the remaining crew members hostages. After an 11-hour siege, the government refused to honor their demands so the hijackers surrendered. Since there were no virgins in paradise awaiting dead Marxists, they were not suicidal.

- February 6, 1981: A Jordanian diplomat in Lebanon was kidnapped in Beirut. The abduction kindled an explosive dispute between Jordan and Syria, because the official lived and worked where security was under the control of Syrian troops who were serving as part of the "Arab Deterrent Force." Three of Hisham Muheissen's bodyguards were slain in the abduction and a housemaid who was mistaken for his wife.

Credit for the attack was claimed by two pro-Syrian groups. The calls from the Eagles of the Revolution (a unit of al-Saiqa) appeared to be falsified. Leaflets left at the scene were from the Pan-Arab Leftist Organization. They called themselves "vanguards of revolutionary violence in the Lebanese region." One of the attackers, a civilian, was found dead in a car nearby.

The Jordanian government, which was a pariah in the Islamic world, was convinced that Syrian agents were responsible for the kidnapping. They threatened reprisals if Hisham Muheissen was not returned unharmed. Supporting this claim, a caller who claimed to represent the kidnappers threatened to kill him unless Jordan and Iraq released seven Syrian defectors within 48 hours.

A little-known Muslim youth militia released the diplomat on April 14th after holding him captive for 67 days. The National Confrontation Front said it released Muheissen because of pressure from Damascus. Further investigation revealed that the kidnapping was conducted led by Abu Nidal who had become a freelance terrorist entrepreneur.

- February 13, 1981: Thirty Cubans, armed with guns, grenades, and knives seized the ambassador and three other people in the Ecuadorian Embassy in Havana. They wanted nothing more than to live free of Communism. Those seeking asylum were 19 men, four women, and six children.

Cuban authorities said they would not give in to any demands, and that if asked, its forces would attack the embassy and free it from the "anti-social elements." Ecuador said that it was not prepared to legitimize the actions of those seeking freedom by granting them passage out of the Communist country.

The Ecuadorian ambassador had promised the group they could remain in the embassy under "its protection and care" after they gave up their weapons. So after seven days, the political dissidents gave their arms to the Ecuadorian diplomats who immediately left the building. Immediately thereafter, Cuban troops stormed the embassy with tear gas, violating their promise to the Ecuadorians. Cuba's news agency reported that the dissidents had been arrested in what they called a "lightning commando raid." Everyone lost.

- February 16, 1981: The embassy of South Yemen in Paris was hit by two small rockets which were fired from the courtyard of a neighboring apartment house. The perpetrators claimed to represent the victims of a bomb attack on a Paris synagogue in October 1980. Pamphlets found near the embassy and the words "Remember Copernic" painted on a nearby wall showed that the raid was intended as a reprisal for the death of four Parisians. South Yemen was implicated because the man most directly linked to the affair was traced to a Palestinian training camp in that country.

- February 19, 1981: In Lebanon, Islamic gunmen fired on the limousine of Patriarch Maximos Hakim, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Middle East and Western Hemisphere, riddling the car with bullets. Clerics riding limousines, brandishing titles of "Patriarch" and coveting names like "Maximos" tells you a great deal about these men and their ambition.

- February 19, 1981: In a bid to draw attention to the torture death by Spanish police of a jailed Basque Fatherland and Liberty member, ETA kidnapped three honorary consuls from their homes in northern Spain. The abducted men were representatives of Austria, Uruguay and El Salvador.

ETA asked the media to publicize an Amnesty International report on police torture of political prisoners in Spain. They also wanted the press to print a report by the Human Rights Commission of the Basque Parliament on the mistreatment of prisoners in Spanish jails along with 18 photos of the proof that their comrade was tortured to death by police in Madrid.

One week later and just five days after the attempted military coup in the Spanish Parliament, the Basque Fatherland and Liberty members released the consuls and declared a ceasefire in its fight against the Spanish government in order to allow political forces to work out problems in the region. It was not clear whether the separatists released their hostages because they felt their demands had been satisfied or because of the coup attempt.

- February 21, 1981: A bomb exploded in the Munich headquarters of American Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, wounding eight people, three seriously. Two different groups claimed responsibility: Commando of Croatian Revolutionaries in Europe and Armed Secret Organization-Execution Group. The CCRE conveyed their malfeasance through letters written in Croatian, and the ASO-EG communicated with the press in a letter written in Polish.

Either way, it was further proof that America was not justified in going to war in the Balkans on behalf of the Croats. They had been Fascist terrorists in league with the Nazis and Muslims from their inception. The Croat Ustashi had slaughtered 800,000 Christian Serbs and Jews and yet these ruthless Roman Catholics were presented as the victims of terror by an ignorant and immoral cadre of American media outlets and politicians. Clinton's NATO bombing campaign of Serbian Christians in the midst of the Monica Lewinski affair was morally bankrupt.

- February 23, 1981: Muslim gunmen in Lebanon fired grenades at the Egyptian, Sudanese, and American Embassies in a coordinated attack against the Sudan, U.S. and Egypt. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat had just taken part in a meeting the day before with Sudanese dictator and Muslim mass murderer, Gaafar Nimeiri. Sadat was trying to repair his tattered reputation in the Islamic world following the American-sponsored Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

- February 24, 1981: Four people were wounded by Islamic jihadists who fired into a group of passengers at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. Security forces arrested a Libyan and three Algerian Muslims. The Libyan told police, "I am a fighter in the Libyan Revolution and our action was directed against an enemy of Colonel Qadhafi." He added that the target of the shooting was a Libyan doctor, Ada Garief, but airport officials said he was listed on the flight from Algeria.

One of the wounded who was a Lebanese citizen was in critical condition. The other three victims were Libyans.

- February 27, 1981: Two Iraqi diplomats were murdered while they were on their way to work in Lebanon. They were shot from a passing car by jihadists armed with machine guns. The victimized car was generally used by the Iraqi ambassador, Abdel Razzak Laftah. Recognizing that Lebanon is principally Shia, he had just recently had asked the Lebanese government for added security for the embassy and other Iraqi facilities due to the war between Iran and Iraq.

- March 2, 1981: A Pakistani Airliner from Karachi to Peshawar was hijacked to Kabul, Afghanistan and then to Damascus, Syria. Tired and hungry, the Muslim militants surrendered after 13 days.

Three armed jihadists seized the Pakistani International Boeing 727 while it was near the border of Afghanistan. The terrorists were members of Al Zulfikar, a group of pro-Bhutto supporters. General Zia ul-Haq, who replaced Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto in a coup, executed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979. The hijackers held 141 people as hostage, including five Americans and 11 crew members.

The hijackers demanded that Pakistan release 70 political prisoners. They threatened to kill the passengers one by one and then blow up the plane. The aircraft landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, where one diplomat, Tariq Rahim was shot. His body was dumped on the runway. According to the survivors, the shooting took place during a beating and may not have been premeditated. Rahim was Pakistan's diplomatic representative to Teheran and a former aide to Bhutto. Tariq Rahim had been suspected of complicity in the 1977 coup that brought Zia to power.

Salamullah Khan, who was the leader of the hijackers, said he was prepared to release the women and children if the government of Pakistan would apologize publicly for saying that he belonged to the outlawed Pakistan People's Party. They must have done so because 29 women, children and infirmed hostages were released on March 7 in Kabul. And even that was not without its challenges because at the time, Pakistan was funding the Mujahideen in their Afghani battle against the Soviets.

Without warning, the plane with more than 100 hostages still on board flew to Damascus, Syria, on March 9th where the terrorists reopened negotiations with Pakistan's ambassador to Syria. It was then that the Pakistani Islamic military dictatorship agreed to release 20 political prisoners from Salamullah Khan's list. That was increased on March 12th to 55 prisoners. Then, with an affinity for hijackings and terrorists, Libyan syphilitic Muammar Qadhafi agreed to receive the hijackers and the released prisoners.

Next, the hijackers asked for $50,000, a sum which the Pakistanis quickly agreed to pay. With the paltry sum pocketed, Salamullah Khan told the Zia regime that he wanted a few Al Zulfikar members to stay behind in Pakistan long enough to sell their homes and land, but with a promise from Islamabad that they would be allowed to leave Pakistan once their holdings had been liquidated. And once again, the Pakistani regime agreed.

The Pakistani political prisoners were put on a plane headed for Libya. En route, however, Libya reneged on its original invitation. So then on March 15th, Syria agreed to give them asylum. The hijackers surrendered and the prisoner transport headed back from Libya to Syria with 54 political prisoners aboard.

The three hijacker's achievement brought a storm of criticism from the U.S. and Pakistan. Rather than blaming Islam or themselves, the U.S. and Pakistan criticized the Soviet Union for the miniscule role it played in the negotiations in Kabul. But that was absurd since Zia and Carter were directly responsible for the USSR being engaged in Afghanistan in the first place.

The Pakistani al-Zulfikar terrorist organization was formed in 1977 by Mir Murtaza Bhutto, the eldest son of former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. His father had been deposed by a military coup led by General Zia ul-Haq in July. Bhutto was arrested on murder charges in September. The elected Prime Minister was convicted by a military tribunal in April 1979 and hanged.

Al-Zulfikar's goal was to overthrow the American-supported military regime that ousted the elected Prime Minister. Rife with allies, al-Zulfikar was funded by the security agencies of Afghanistan, India, and the USSR, all of which were opposed to the Zia regime.

Al-Zulfikar did not commit any terrorist attacks after 1981. Its founder, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, re-entered Pakistani in 1993 from his exile in Syria. He was imprisoned and released after a brief detention. Mir Murtaza Bhutto was involved in some very public and vitriolic internal conflicts with the Pakistan People's Party which was led by Murtaza's older sister Benazir. As an enemy of the Islamic dictator and his secular rival, the isolated Murtaza was executed by the Pakistani police in 1996 outside of his Karachi home. More recently, former members of al-Zulfakir have recently been suspected of involvement in Pakistani organized crime.

- March 4, 1981: The Turkish labor attaché in France was assassinated. A Turkish religious official, Tecelli Ari, was mortally wounded in the same incident, and would later die in the hospital. The Secret Armenian Army took responsibility for the incident.

The cause was just and the political and religious targets were valid, but that did not make the murders just. Words, not bullets, would have been a more appropriate weapon to wield in the cause of exposing the complicity of Turkish Muslims in the genocide of one million Armenians.

- March 5, 1981: The Iranian ambassador to Syria was murdered in Beirut. The assassination was linked to the ongoing war between Iran and Iraq and thus indicative of Sunni-Shia sectarianism.

- March 5, 1981: Three Islamic jihadists shot and killed an Iranian student using silencers as he walked on a Beirut street. Mohammad Saleh, president of the Iranian Student Association, was the second Shia student activist to be killed since the beginning of the Iranian-Iraqi war.

- March 6, 1981: Two Palestinian terrorists attempted to cross into Israel from Lebanon using hang-gliders. The jihadists planned to bomb an oil refinery in Haifa. One wannabe pilot was arrested by the Israelis when he landed near Haifa and the other missed his target and mistakenly came down in Lebanon. A few weeks later, the Palestine Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the unsuccessful operation. Their release read: "A unit from the P.L.F. air force attacked Israeli positions.".

- March 8, 1981: A gas station in Jerusalem was blasted by a hand grenade.

- March 10, 1981: American Ambassador John Gunther Dean escaped attempt as he was riding from the Christian sector of Beirut to the Muslim side. The shooting occurred as President Elias Sarkis was meeting Syria's Hafez al-Assad in Damascus to discuss continuing political violence in Lebanon.

- March 15, 1981: Palestinian terrorists discharged a machine gun into a bus filled with Israelis. It was traveling through Ramot, a Jewish suburb of northern Jerusalem. One passenger was wounded. A manhunt was launched but the attackers escaped into the surrounding gullies.

- March 22, 1981: Islamic gunmen fired automatic weapons at the American Embassy in Beirut.

- March 27, 1981: In Nicaragua, five terrorists commandeered a Honduran jetliner with 87 passengers aboard shortly after takeoff. The New Orleans-bound plane was then directed to Nicaragua by the hijackers, where some 30 women and children were released.

The leftists said they were members of the Cinchonero Popular Liberation Front, a Honduran Communist organization. They threatened to destroy the plane and kill its occupants unless Honduras agreed to release 16 Salvadoran terrorists from Honduran prisons, including the Marxist leader Facundo Guardado. The CPLF also demanded the neutrality of Honduras in the Marxist Salvadorian struggle against the governing junta. The prisoners the CPLF wanted released were all being held in Honduras on charges of illegal arms trafficking.

Problems arose in Nicaragua as the hijackers waited for a negotiating team to arrive. The packed plane baked in the hot sun. Then in a complicated deal, the Panamanian ambassador to Nicaragua boarded the jetliner and got the Honduran government to agree to release the prisoners if the plane's passengers and crew were released to the custody of the Panama government. So the plane was flown to Panama, where the hijackers surrendered to authorities. The freed prisoners arrived in Panama a day later where they remained while applying for political asylum in Cuba.

- March 28, 1981: In Islamic Indonesia, five members of the Commando Jihad, a group of Muslim fundamentalists dedicated to Iran-style Islamic theocracy, brandished machine guns and dynamite to hijack a Garauda Indonesian Airways DC-9. There were 57 passengers including three Americans. The jihadists diverted the domestic flight over Indonesia to Bangkok.

There they presented their request for the release of 20 political prisoners held in Indonesia. Their other demands included the punishment of the Indonesian Vice President for allegedly taking kickbacks from a U.S. aircraft company as part of their weapons programs. Being good anti-Semitic Muslims, the jihadists demanded the expulsion of all "Jew officials and Israeli militarists from Indonesia." Being good covetous Muslims, they requested a $1.5 million ransom. As it had been with Muhammad, terrorism was once again Islam's most lucrative business.

The Indonesian government agreed to all their demands, including the expulsion of Jews, but they asked for time to assemble the prisoners and find a country to accept them all. On a roll, the hijackers quadrupled their demands to 80 Islamic convicts and the Indonesians agreed, ostensibly because the Islamic regime governing Indonesia was sympathetic to the terrorist's mission, save their desire to overthrow the current regime. Simultaneously, Indonesian dictator Suharto requested permission of the Thai government to send in commandos to overpower Commando Jihad.

During the second day of the ordeal, a British passenger made a daring escape through the emergency exit. Another passenger, an American, attempted to duplicate this tactic but was shot in the back and dumped on the runway. Next, a crewman was bludgeoned by the Muslims. His body was also thrown off the plane. His crime had been making standard hand signals to a refueling crew.

With information from the escaped Brit, the Indonesian commandos staged their rescue attempt - but not before America rallied to their side. On March 31st, Indonesian Muslims stormed the jet and killed four out of five of the jihadists. The pilot and a member of the assault team were wounded, but the hostages were freed. It was later reported that a military team trained in antiterrorist tactics had been flown in from the United States to assist the Indonesians in their assault, bringing with them the rather sophisticated American equipment and tactics.

- March 29, 1981: The airline office of the Yugoslav airline JAT in Brussels was set afire. Albanian Muslims were suspected.

- April 1, 1981: The French Embassy in Beirut was attacked by rockets during the night by Shia Muslims. The Islamic Mujahideen Saff claimed responsibility. The attack was to protest France's sale of Mirage jets to Iraq, with whom the Iranians are warring.

- April 2, 1981: In Denmark, the labor adviser at the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen was seriously wounded when terrorists invaded his apartment. Callers to the Associated Press stated that the "Commandos of Retribution for the Armenian Genocide" were responsible. Demir survived the six bullet wounds he received from the Marxist gang. Again, just cause, right target, wrong tactic.

- April 16, 1981: Israeli troops shot and killed two young Palestinian terrorists who were attempting to cross the border into Israel using a hot-air balloon. The Palestine Liberation Front "Air Force" claimed credit for the failure. The balloon was carrying arms and explosives in addition to wannabe Muslim murderers. Written documents found onboard the balloon revealed that their mission was to seize hostages and demand release of 15 Israeli-held Islamic terrorists, including the two buffoons who had tried to cross the border on hang-gliders in early March.

- April, 1981: Attempts by nine Islamic Conference leaders to mediate peace between Iran and Iraq failed. U.N. Gulf War mediator Olaf Palme failed as well. The Iraq-Iran war was serving as a harbinger of the Sunni-Shia civil war that would befall Iraq following the toppling of their secular dictator.

- May 1, 1981: Heinz Kittel, Vienna city councilman and chairman of the Austria-Israel Friendship Society, was assassinated by a PLO consortium of rival groups that included Abu Nidal and Black_September.

The Fatah Revolution Committee, or Al-Assifa, which was headed by Abu Nidal, claimed responsibility for the murder in an Austrian news magazine interview. The assassin, Husham Rajih, a Jordanian traveling on an Iraqi passport, was apprehended in Salzburg after a subsequent attack on a synagogue in August, at which time he boasted that he had committed the crime on behalf of the former Fatah affiliate.

In Rajih's apartment police discovered firearms, explosives, treasured copies of the Qur'an, and the passports of two of the jihadists who had joined him in the attack on the synagogue. He revealed that the mastermind of the murder, if we may be so generous, was. The murdering Muslim was arrested in Salzburg. He in turn told the court at his trial that he was a member of a Palestinian group called Harkat Fatah and that he was fingered by a dissident Palestinian group called Al-Asifah. At this time, Arafat and Abu Nidal had indeed gone from allies to rivals. Bahij Mohammed Younis said "al-Asifah often blamed other movements for crimes it committed.".

In January 1982, the two synagogue attackers were brought to trial. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment for their crime, Rajih was also convicted for his involvement in the Heinz Nittel murder. We do not know the status of Younis.

- May 2, 1981: In Belgium, there was a bomb attack against the Yugoslav Office of Tourism. The assault was blamed on Albanian Muslims who subsequently claimed responsibility for many of the bomb attacks perpetrated in Brussels against Yugoslav targets.

- May 3, 1981: In France, a previously unknown group called Pesach, or Passover claimed responsibility for shots fired during the night at the Syrian Airlines office in central Paris. In a telephoned statement to AFP, Pesach stated that the attack was a reply to "Syrian persecutions of Jews and the massacre of Christians in Libya." The anonymous caller also claimed responsibility for shots fired a week earlier at a neo-Nazi bookshop also in central Paris. There were no casualties reported in either incident.

On May 13, three members of the Pesach group were arrested. They said that their attack on the bookshop was motivated by a recent desecration of a Jewish cemetery in France.

- May 13, 1981: Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded as he drove through crowds gathered for his weekly public audience in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. Police arrested an escaped Turkish terrorist who was identified as Mehmet Ali Agca, 23. Two women standing by were injured, one seriously. The Pope recovered from his wounds after two operations.

The assailant "escaped" from a Turkish prison shortly before the Pope arrived in Turkey in 1979. During the visit, Mehmet Ali Agca made a series of death threats against the Catholic potentate.

As a good Muslim, Mehmet Ali was an experienced jihadist. He had been convicted of the assassination of a prominent Turkish editor who had written favorably of the coup perpetrated by the military junta that was now controlling Turkey. While the generals had sentenced Mehmet to die for his crime, his Muslim guards thought it would be better if the jihadist could fulfill his quest to kill the Catholic pope instead.

In July 1981, after a three-day trial, Mehmet Ali Agca was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Italian court in Rome. The first year of that sentence was to be spent in solitary confinement. Mehmet Ali read the sentence in his jail cell because he had boycotted the court proceedings on the grounds that the Italian courts should not prosecute him for a crime committed in the Vatican and because as a Muslim, he was not accountable to the jurisdiction of Catholicism either.

Contrary to the hopes of many, the speedy trial did not serve to answer the questions of motive, or whether Agca had acted alone or had been part of a conspiracy in the assassination attempt. The court had refused to admit any religious evidence but the overriding impression of the jurors was that Mehmet Ali Agca was of a fanatic Muslim.

High-ranking Turkish officials were convinced that Agca did not act alone but they were unwilling to identify his Islamic accomplices. Claims were made trying to link Mehmet Ali to Bulgaria and Marxism but with insufficient evidence. Agca said that he was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) but that connection was never explored.

In September 1996 the Turkish Muslim murderer made a plea to Italy asking to be pardoned from his life sentence, a request which was subsequently honored.

- May 15, 1981: In Italy, a bomb exploded outside the Rome office of Israel's El Al airline.

- May 23, 1981: In Albania, the Yugoslav Embassy was bombed in the capital of Tirana. The predominantly Islamic Albanian government insinuated that the Yugoslavs set their own bomb.

- May 24, 1981: In Turkey, four gunmen hijacked a Turkish Airlines DC-9 en route from Istanbul to Ankara as it left Yesilkoy International Airport. They ordered the pilot to land at the small military airfield at Burgas in Bulgaria.

The hijackers demanded $500,000 and freedom for 47 prisoners in Turkish jails. They threatened to kill five American banking executives who were among the 112 passengers aboard if their demands were not met. The Turkish government refused to negotiate and asked Bulgaria to keep the plane from leaving Burgas.

Bulgarian officials maintained contact with the hijackers by radio. Deadlines were extended and then abandoned. The hijackers asked for envelopes and paper so that the hostages could write farewell letters. The Turkish government refused. Twenty-four hours later, two of the terrorists were lured from the plane by the promise that they could make a statement to the press. Once on the ground, they were immediately apprehended. The plane was then pulled forward, knocking everyone standing off their feet. Passengers overpower the remaining two gunmen.

- May 25, 1981: Following the visit of Egyptian President Sadat to the Islamic killing fields in the Sudan, rockets were fired at the U.S., Egyptian, and Sudanese embassies in Beirut. A Lebanese security guard at the U.S. Embassy and an Egyptian consular official were injured.

- May 28, 1981: A bomb exploded outside the Armenian Cultural Center in Paris, killing the caretaker of an adjacent building. The attack was claimed a few days later by the Turkish Islamic Revolutionary Army. The anti-Armenian attack was set to mark the anniversary of the creation of the Republic of Armenia on May 28, 1918. The temporary state was divided between Turkey and the Soviet Union in 1920.

- June 1, 1981: A rival jihadist shot and killed the Brussels representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organization outside of his residence. While the assassination provoked a sharp exchange between the PLO and the Israeli Embassy with the PLO accusing Jews of killing Naim Khader. The Israelis denied the allegation, stating the obvious: "We know the various Palestinian movements kill each other." Khader was unpopular with fundamentalist Muslim Palestinians because he favored limited compromises with Jews. The gunman, who was described as a bearded Arab, fired six bullets at Khader at close range before fleeing in a waiting car.

- June 1, 1981: A suspicious package found in a Jerusalem café. It turned out to be a bomb which subsequently exploded, wounding a bomb disposal specialist who was attempting to dismantle it.

- June 3, 1981: The Turkish Folk Dance Troupe was prevented from performing in Southern California. A bombing at the Anaheim Convention Center caused officials to cancel two showings, one of which was scheduled for Disneyland. The Armenian National Committee used the tactic to protest the Turkish Republic's centennial celebration and to commemorate the massacre of 1,000,000 Armenians 65 years ago. A State Department spokesman expressed regret at the cancellations particularly because Muslim mass murdering Turkey was a close ally of the United States.

- June 4, 1981: Turkish Muslims resumed their murderous assault on Armenian Christians by planting a powerful bomb inside an Armenian church. Fortunately, it was discovered and defused. The crime was claimed by the Turkish Islamic Revolutionary Army.

- June 5, 1981: In the third such attack in eight days another Armenian church in Paris was bombed by Turkish Muslims. This attack, like the others, was claimed by the Turkish Islamic Revolutionary Army. Turkish authorities stated that there was no such organization and accused the Armenians of staging the destruction of their own churches to incite other Armenians.

- June 6, 1981: Israeli warplanes successfully destroy an Iraqi nuclear power plant near Baghdad before it could be fueled, effectively keeping Iraq out of the nuclear weapons business.

- June 7, 1981: Two bombs were found in a national park near Dimona, Israel.

- June 7, 1981: In Iraq, five employees of a West German construction firm were kidnapped north of Kirkuk by Kurdish terrorists. A statement from officials in West Germany's Embassy in Tehran, Iran said that all five were released in August. They did not say that it was following the payment of a ransom.

- June 9, 1981: In Switzerland, an Armenian shot and killed Mehmet Arguz, a secretary at the Turkish Consulate in Geneva. The assailant was immediately apprehended. The Marxist Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia claimed credit for the assassination in a phone call to authorities using the name: Antranig Pasha Suicide Commando - Armenia. They were striving for independence from Turkey in recognition of the Islamic genocide on their people.

The arrest of this Armenian terrorist on this date led to the formation of the group called the "Ninth of June Organization." It was responsible for several bombings in Europe and Switzerland against Swiss targets.

- June 19, 1981: In Iran, the Ninth of June Organization, an Armenian group named after the day of the arrest of an Armenian in Geneva, claimed responsibility for a small bomb set off at Swissair offices in Tehran.

The Ninth of June Organization was composed of members of the Armenian Secret Liberation Army (ASALA) who wanted to force Switzerland to free an imprisoned comrade. The ASALA was the best organized, and most prolific of the Armenian groups trying to increase awareness of the Armenian genocide committed by Turkey in 1915. Just as Israel had been born out of the Holocaust, the Armenians wanted to secure the an independent Armenian state in Northern Turkey in the name of the million Armenians the Turks had savagely and systematically murdered.

In fifteen bombings between June 19th, 1981 and January 17, 1982, the organization created a good deal of fear but caused only a handful of injuries and no deaths. Their methods ultimately proved unsuccessful as the Swiss government refused to release Jamgotchian, who was convicted of murder and sent to prison in December 1981. Presumably the members of the Ninth of June Organization returned to their original role as regular ASALA terrorists after Jamgotchian's cause was given up as lost.

- June 22, 1981: A Libyan airline worker left a package of poisoned peanuts at the home of a Libyan expatriate he was trying to kill in Lebanon. The peanuts had reportedly been eaten by the children as well as by the family dog, killing the animal and making the children seriously ill.

- June 26, 1981: A small bomb was detonated outside the Swiss Banking Corporation in Los Angeles. The action was claimed by the Ninth of June Organization, an Armenian group pressing for the release of an Armenian held by Switzerland for the murder of a Turkish consulate employee in Geneva.

- June 27, 1981: The Iranian prime minister and seventy others were killed in the bombing of the Legislature in Teheran.

- July 1, 1981: A series of violent incidents were sparked in Brussels by Muslim Albanians. They targeted Yugoslavs from the Kosovo Province.

- July 14, 1981: A gunman opened fire on a diplomat in the Yugoslav Embassy wounding him and a porter. The attack was later claimed by an Albanian Croat organization calling itself HDP. The caller stated that his group sought independence for Croatia and the return of Albanian territory currently under Yugoslav control. These folks represented the Muslim side of the Ustashi Fascist alliance.

- July 16, 1981: A bomb exploded outside the Iranian Cultural Center in Paris. \.

- July 17, 1981: The death of a Libyan student in Ogden, Utah was religiously and politically motivated. Investigators claimed links to an internal Libyan feud. A suspect, another Libyan student, was arrested in connection with the assassination of Nabil Abuzed Mansour who had been discovered in the trunk of his automobile, shot five times at close range.

The suspect, Mohamed Shabata, was arrested in Chicago as he prepared to board a flight for London on his way to Tripoli.

- July 21, 1981: In Iraq, two French engineers working for a construction company were kidnapped in northern Iraq near Kirkuk. Two months later, members of the Iraqi Communist Party-Central Military Bureau published a press release in Beirut outlining their demands. They demanded that France use its influence with the Iraqi regime to obtain the freedom of political prisoners. They emphasized that the release of the engineers depended on the efforts of all those concerned to convince the Iraqi regime to accede to their demands.

- July 22, 1981: In Greece, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for an armed assault on a Piraeus shipping and travel agency in which two people were killed and 70 were injured.

The Popular Front said the travel agency was serving as a front organization for Israeli intelligence interests. The victims were Evgenia Angelikoussi, owner of the agency and an associate, Dimitrios Malatasis. The PFLP insisted that Angelikoussi was a "member of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency." The next day the PLO Liaison and Information Bureau in Athens disclaimed responsibility for the attack after they discovered that they had been wrong.

- July 26, 1981: In the Sudan, a suitcase bomb exploded inside Chad's Embassy, killing at least two people. Thanks to Islam, the Sudan remained the most deadly place on earth.

- August 1, 1981: In the Syrian-controlled area of west Beirut, there were several attacks against French interests, including bombings of two French banks. Abu Nidal's Syrian backed group, Al Assifa, was suspected because of France's efforts to mediate on behalf of the PLO.

- August 1, 1981: In Poland, Abu Daoud, a Palestinian terrorist leader reputed to have masterminded the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes was shot and seriously wounded. Daoud was gunned down in Warsaw's Victoria Inter-Continental Hotel by a young gunman who fired five bullets then calmly walked away. Two Polish women were also wounded in the shooting. Daoud was a senior member of Fatah, and had a leadership position in Black_September.

- August 1, 1981: A rocket attack against the Saudi Arabian Embassy was believed to be perpetrated by the Syrian-controlled Abu Nidal dissident faction of the PLO group.

- August 4, 1981: A shooting at a Brussels cafe resulted in the death of two employees of the Yugoslav embassy. Credit for the attack was claimed by an Islamic "Albanian independence movement." Duped into believing that which was not true, the Muslim declared the purpose of mission was "to avenge our thousands of Albanian brothers pursued and persecuted in Kosovo." The notion that Serbs were slaughtering thousands of Muslims was a complete fabrication - one intentionally hoisted by Islamic clerics to enrage public opinion against those the Muslims had actually pursued and persecuted.

- August 7, 1981: Twenty-four Muslims claiming to be members of the Mujahideen Khalq took over the Iranian section of the Algerian Embassy in the United States and held six hostages before police broke the siege. Three people were injured.

The Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or Holy Warriors of the Trench, began as the People's Mujahideen of Iran. As somewhat secular Sunni Muslims, they operated out of Iraq and France. They opposed the Shi'ite Iranian theocracy in Tehran, and served as the militant arm of the National Council of Resistance to Iran - a coalition of opposition groups which claimed to be Iran's transitional parliament-in-exile. But being anti mullah did not made them pro-American.

Prior to American's Iraqi invasion, the NCRI was headquartered in Iraq, with the blessing of Saddam Hussein. They also had representative offices in other countries including a presence in Washington, D.C. Over they years the NCRI foolishly received support from the U.S. Congress. But ignorant and immoral as usual, after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government actively courted cooperation from the Shi'ite government of Iran and canceled its official support for the Mujahideen-e-Khalq and NCRI. It was like soliciting Satan's help against the Devil and in the process snubbing one's nose at a demon.

The reason the NCRI and its Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) were based in Iraq was that prior to the American invasion, Iraq and Iran were enemies. Further, the Iraqi government was secular - the very thing the NCRI desired for Iran. Now all of that has changed. Iran controls Iraq via the Iranian Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani and his Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and Iraq's government is now Islamic and fundamentalist.

In George Bush's crusade to justify his intended invasion of Iraq, vague intelligence reports were leaked which were construed to suggest that Mujahideen-e-Khalq militia camps in Iraq might be hiding some of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. But that was absurd. Even though the NCRI was secular, they were Iranian, and thus the last people a paranoid dictator would trust with his imaginary weapons.

Knowing in advance what was going to happen in Iraq, and that they would soon be secular outcasts in a sectarian culture, the NCRI and MEK immediately enveloped themselves in the protection of U.S. forces following the invasion. In May 2003, U.S. Central Command stated that the group was "complying fully with Coalition instructions and directives." Mind you, the MEK hated America almost as much as it despised the Iranian clerical regime.

Since the American government has never understood Islam, nor the strife that exists in its realm between the secular and sectarian, much less Sunni-Shia, a quick review of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq is in order. They were founded as a liberal, even socialistic, nationalistic party supporting former Prime Minister Mossaddeq against the Shah in 1963. Failing to achieve their goals through popular protests, in 1971 the MEG began its armed struggle against the Shah, whom it saw as a dictator and a puppet of the United States. The group conducted a number of attacks on U.S. military personnel and civilians in Iran in the 1970s.

Although the Mujahideen-e-Khalq initially supported the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the overthrow of the Shah, the group's secular perspective led to an eventual crackdown by the Ayatollah Khomeini regime. Following the MEK's call for a mass demonstration after the 1981 impeachment of Abolhasan Bani-Sadr, the elected President and chairman of the Islamic Revolutionary Council, they became enemies of the mullahs. Thousands of MEK members were killed and imprisoned as a result of religious repression.

The MEK's leaders fled to Paris, where the Ayatollah Khomeini had previously hung out and their militant infrastructure moved to Iraq. In 1987 the Mujahideen-e-Khalq headquarters was also relocated to Iraq. United again, they began using Iraq as a base for cross-border raids into Iran.

In 1991, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq assisted Saddam Hussein in suppressing the Shia and Kurdish uprisings. They also performed internal security services for Iraq's secular government. In April 1992, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq conducted simultaneous attacks on Iranian Embassies and installations in thirteen countries. In April 1999, the MEK assassinated the deputy chief of the Armed Forces of Iran. In 2000 and 2001 they were involved in mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids on Iranian military and law-enforcement units and government buildings near the Iran-Iraq border.

The Mujahideen-e-Khalq still exists to overthrow the Iranian Shi'ite government and replace it with the NCRI. At a 1995 conference, the Marxist Muslim group outlined a plan. The key provision was: Guarantee freedom for political parties and forums except those loyal to either the Shah or Ayatollah Khomeini. Under such a system, the only candidates would be those approved by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq.

The MEK has periodically released information on Iran's developing nuclear weapons ambitions, including a crucial 2002 revelation regarding Iran's uranium enrichment program. Its latest release came in February 2005, when the group passed on information to the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) that Iran now possesses sources for polonium-210 and beryllium, crucial components in building a nuclear initiator. The group claimed that this was the last objective that Iran needed to fulfill, and that they planned to have to a nuclear weapon by the end of 2006.

Along with his wife Maryam, Massoud Rajavi, serves as emir of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq - a Marxist Muslim organization named after Muhammad's successful Medina battle where a trench was dug around the oasis town. Said to have achieved almost cult-like status within the group, Rajavi is also the commander of the Mujahideen's militia forces.

Rajavi first became involved with the MEK in the 1970s as a student. He was one of the few leaders who survived the crackdown by the Shah. He also survived Islamic oppression because he became an active supporter of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. His charismatic style and MEK's blend of Islam and Marxism attracted thousands of followers. Initially backing Ayatollah Khomeini's new regime, Rajavi soon fell out of favor with the mullahs because his Islam was not seen as sufficiently fundamentalist. So, in the early 1980s, Rajavi and the MEK attempted to overthrow the Ayatollah, but failed, leading to yet another crackdown whereupon thousands of Mujahideen-e-Khalq supporters were tortured, jailed, or simply murdered by the religious regime.

After his failed coup attempt, Rajavi fled to France and set up the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), the political wing for the poligious MEK. After the militant Muslim Marxist wore out its welcome in France, Rajavi elicited the support of Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In return for a base on Iraqi soil, Rajavi fought against his home country in the Iran-Iraq War, providing targets for Iraqi planes and even leading a failed offensive against Iranian troops.

The MEK's support of Iraq against Iran destroyed much of Mujahideen-e-Khalq's credibility amongst the Iranian people, but, through Massoud and Maryam Rajavi's charismatic cult leadership, the group survived.

With the ongoing U.S. war in Iraq and a possible showdown with Iran, those guided by Sun Tzu's Art of War, see the MEK as an important asset for Western military and intelligence units, despite the fact that the Mujahideen-e-Khalq is listed as a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union. Massoud Rajavi has met with senior U.S. military commanders in Iraq, and is now thought to be living in Germany.

- August 8, 1981: Three Muslims armed with automatic weapons opened fire on a U.S. Air Force pickup truck carrying three U.S. citizens, two of whom were USAF personnel.

- August 9, 1981: The R.S. Schulz publishing house near Stuttgart, Germany was bombed by a Croatian Fascist group which warned the publisher not to publish the memoirs of Tito or another bigger explosion would occur at the publisher's home. The neo-Nazi Ustashi Croatian Revolutionary Cell - Bruno Busic Department, took credit for the attack. The anonymous caller said that the group was based in Paris and that the genocidal despots were "fighting the unjust regime in Yugoslavia.".

- August 9, 1981: The PLO claimed responsibility for planting of several bombs near the entrance to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and near the town of Neve Ya' Acov. The booby-trapped IEDs were successfully detonated by Israeli security personnel.

- August 9, 1981: The May 15th Group for the Liberation of Palestine in Beirut claimed responsibility for the bombing of an El Al office at Rome's International Fiumicino Airport. These Muslims injuring two people and gutted the Israeli offices. The savage attack perpetrated by Arab Palestinians in business to annihilate the Jewish race was said to be "in retaliation against the savage operations aimed at the annihilation of the Arab and Palestinian peoples.".

- August 10, 1981: Two bombs exploded adjacent to the Israeli Embassy in Vienna. One woman was injured. The May 15 Arab Organization for the Liberation of Palestine distributed a statement in Beirut claiming responsibility for the criminal behavior.

- August 10, 1981: Two bombs exploded at the front and back door of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Athens. Later that day, in Beirut the May 15 Arab Organization for the Liberation of Palestine claimed credit for the attack.

The May 15 Organization for the Liberation of Palestine was led by Muhammad al-Umari. He was known throughout Palestinian circles as Abu Ibrahim - the bomb man. His M15OLP was formed in 1979 as a splinter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations Group (PFLP-SOG) which was a splinter of the PFLP, which at the time was a wholly owned subsidiary of the PLO. Carlos the Jackal was also involved in its establishment.

The stated goal of the M15OLP was the destruction of the state of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish people. The organization maintained its headquarters in Iraq because it was funded by OPEC and received financial and logistical support from the Iraqi regime. Their most celebrated attack was the 1982 bombing of a Pan Am flight en route to Honolulu in which a Japanese teenager was killed. Mohammad Rashid is still being held in a U.S. prison in relation to that bombing.

The terrorist group disbanded in the late-1980s because most of its leadership joined Colonel Hawari's Special Operations Group of Fatah. Thus the May 15 Organization for the Liberation of Palestine became the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.

- August 14, 1981: Explosives were discovered aboard a Middle East Airlines plane when it landed in Tripoli. Shi'ite Muslims associated with AMAL were suspected because they had perpetrated similar attacks to protest the disappearance of their religious leader Imam al-Sadr.

- August 19, 1981: The U.S. shot down two Libyan fighters over the Gulf of Sidra in defiance of Qadhafi's Line of Death.

- August 22, 1981: An unexploded bomb was discovered and defused outside the House of Iran on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. It was identical to one used on the Iranian Cultural Center recently on July 16th.

- August 22, 1981: In Spain, supporters of Iran's monarchy launched a campaign against the Khomeini regime. In a daring move, they hijacked a missile patrol boat purchased by the Iranian Navy from France. The seizure of the Tarbarzin occurred just off the coast of Spain while the boat was en route to Iran.

The 25-man mission was led by ex-Admiral Kamal Habibollahi, former commander-in-chief of the Imperial Navy under the Shah. His Azadegan, or Freedom, movement was led by the former commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces, General Bahram Aryana. As armed protests go, this was as good as they get.

- August 29, 1981: In Lebanon, one person was killed and two were seriously wounded in an explosion at the Iran radio and television bureau in Beirut.

- August 29, 1981: In Austria, two people were killed and 20 people were wounded when two men described as Arabs attacked a synagogue in Vienna as the Jewish worshipers were leaving the service. Three Austrian police officers were also wounded in the terrorist assault.

The assailants were arrested, along with a third Arab Muslim. At least one of the attackers claimed to belong to the Al Asifa, an Abu Nidal terrorist group. The captured terrorists were a Syrian student and an Iraqi who had lived in Austria since 1979. The Iraqi later confessed to the murder of Heinz Nittel on May 1st. In late October, Husham Rajih, a Jordanian traveling on an Iraqi passport, and the organizer of the synagogue attack and the Heinz Nittel murder, was apprehended in Salzburg. In his apartment police discovered firearms, Islamic writings, explosives, and the passports of two accomplices.

Rajih admitted to the Nittel murder and confessed that he had acted on behalf of the Abu Nidal Group.

- August 31, 1981: In Lebanon, a bomb exploded in an empty Middle East Airlines Boeing 727. Lebanese officials suspected that the device was planted by Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims associated with AMAL. They were protesting the 1978 disappearance of their leader, Iranian-born Shia imam Musa Sadr.

- August 31, 1981: A terrorist bomb smuggled onto the Ramstein Air Base in Germany exploded, damaging the U.S. Air Force's European headquarters and wounding 20 people, 13 of whom were Americans. The attack was the fourth this year against American installations in West Germany. It occured amid growing hostility in Western Europe over defense policies, including President Reagan's decision to begin production of neutron weapons.

The Red Army Faction, the new name of the former PFLP affiliated Baader-Meinhof Group, was suspected. Plans for an attack on the Ramstein base were found in the apartment of Julianne Plambeck, a member of the Baader-Meinhof. In early September, a letter was received from the Red Army Faction claiming responsibility for the attack. The letter, dated August 31st, stated: "Today with the Sigurd Debus commando, we attacked the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force Europe in Ramstein." Sigurd Debus, an imprisoned terrorist, died on April 16th after a two-month long hunger strike. The group declared that it had attacked the base as part of its "war against war.".

- September 4, 1981: The French Ambassador to Lebanon, Louis Delamare, was assassinated as he drove home in West Beirut. Three gunmen stopped his car in an ambush a few yards from his residence, and, in a foiled kidnapping, tried to tried unsuccessfully to open the limousine's door. Failing, they shot the ambassador several times through the windshield, then fled. A few hours the ambassador was pronounced dead from the multiple head and chest wounds.

With no one claiming responsibility, it was assumed that pro-Iranian Shi'ites were to blame because of the political asylum being granted in France to Iran's former president, Bani-Sadr. Other Muslim sources, however, claimed that Syria was responsible for the assassination, using their hired gun, the Palestinian Assifa Group, led by Abu Nidal. Syrian President Assad's displeasure with Arafat's independent diplomacy had led the dictator to go from Fatah friend to foe.

In that case, Delamare may have been targeted because French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson had scheduled a meeting with Arafat in Beirut.

- September 7, 1981: Dynamite was thrown at the Turkish Embassy in Beirut.

- September 12, 1981: A hand grenade was thrown into a group of Italian pilgrims outside the old walled city of Jerusalem. One Italian Catholic was killed by Islam and 28 others were wounded.

- September 15, 1981: Terrorists hidden on a wooded knoll fired Soviet-made RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades at the armor-plated car of the commander of U.S. forces in Europe. General Frederick Kroesen's wife and two others who were traveling with him to U.S. headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany were slightly injured.

The PFLP affiliated Red Army Faction claimed responsibility for the attempted assassination. Their press release claimed that the general "is the one who orders devastation by conventional weapons and decides when and where neutron warheads will be fired.".

- September 17, 1981: In Guatemala, Communists shouting anti-American slogans ransacked an American missionary's home and then shot the Christian cleric to death in front of his wife and five children. Another American missionary was seriously wounded.

The U.S. Embassy identified the murdered man as John Dave Troyer, 28, of Mio, Michigan who had worked in Guatemala for seven years on behalf of the Conservative Mennonite community. The religion of man is no less corrupt than the religion of submission. What's interesting, however, is that they share the same enemy.

- September 17, 1981: In Lebanon, a 700 pounds of explosives blew up outside the terrorist command center of the Palestinian-Lebanese Alliance in Sidon. The blased killed 29 people and wounded 108 others, mainly women and children living nearby apartments.

Palestinian sources said four of their jihadists were among the dead. A telephone caller claiming to be anti-Palestinian took credit for the blasts. The caller, who said he was a spokesman for the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners, said: "Lebanon will never be the base or passageway of any aliens or usurpers." But that was all Lebanon had ever been.

The Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners was usually described as a "shadowy right-wing group." While there was never any evidence, they were alleged to be "linked with the Lebanese Christian Phalange Party." The Phalange were opposed to the Syrian, Iranian, and the PLO presence in their once peaceful nation. However, the situation in the Middle East was so muddled, and so devoid of accurate reporting, the party that was opposed to Syrian involvement was usually presented as Syria's ally.

The bombings and gunfights claimed by the FLLF in the fall of 1981 targeted the PLO, Hizballah, Syria, Iran, France, Israel, and the their allies - and that included America which was on the wrong side as usual. The PLO, not wanting the world to think that they were responsible for plunging the only civil country in the Middle East into civil war, claimed that Israelis orchestrated the bombings. The veracity of their claims however, were only matched by the veracity of their religion.

It is entirely possible that many of the attacks claimed by the FLLF, such as those on French interests, on the Israeli Consulate, and on a Jewish club in Sydney, Australia, were actually perpetrated by the PLO and blamed on the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners. In any regard, there is no proof the group ever existed and if they did, they have been inactive since 1983. No FLLF members were ever arrested or brought to trial.

The very existence of the mysterious Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners organization must be evaluated against the backdrop of the multi-sided civil war that engulfed Lebanon from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. The conflict broke out when Lebanon's long-standing system of power sharing on religious lines collapsed when the Palestinians arrived from Jordan. As Muslims, sharing had never been their strong suit. The PLO factions used the country as a base for terrorism against Jordan, Israel, and the Lebanese government, creating chaos on all sides. The situation deteriorated to the point, Islamic Syrian troops entered as peacekeepers, although the PLO regarded them as occupiers - which is what they ultimately became. The situation deteriorated further when Iran sent its Hizballah militia into Lebanon.

Syria wouldn't withdraw its troops until 2005, and only did so then because of Syria had become a dependant of Iran following the collapse of the Ba'ath government in Iraq. As a Shia proxy, Damascus withdrew its uniformed military because the civilian militias of Hizballah, Iran's unofficial military, were more effective clandestinely controlling Lebanon and attacking Israel. As a direct result of America's bumbling, the Iranian clerics are not only free to complete their nuclear arsenal, they control Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, giving them a land crescent into Israel.

Ultimately, the FLLF name was probably adopted by unaffiliated rebel groups who shared a disdain for terrorists turning their country into a terrorist training camp. In any regard, the FLLF failed and if they ever did exist, they are long since inactive.

- September 18, 1981: A booby-trapped car exploded in a Beirut suburb killing two of the four occupants and seriously wounding the other passengers. Police said the device was concealed inside the car and consisted of eleven pounds of TNT. There were indications that the bomb exploded prematurely en route to an unknown target.

The mysterious Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners claimed responsibility for the bombing. A caller identifying himself as a member of the group stated: "Our objectives are very clear and we will continue our struggle until not a single alien or conspirator remains on Lebanese soil. While Lebanon is our military base of operations, our headquarters is in West Germany. We are not connected with any Lebanese faction operating inside Lebanon.".

- September 20, 1981: A terrorist bomb blasted a crowded movie theater in the Muslim section of West Beirut, killing four people and wounding 36 others. Once again, the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners claimed credit for the attack in a telephone call to AFP. The caller said: "This operation of ours is to prove to the PLO that we are not a fictitious group and all the threats in the world against us will remain fictitious." The PLO had asserted that the FLLF was merely a fictitious front for Israeli operations. While that was not true, the truth is unknown.

- September 22, 1981: In Afghanistan, the Soviet Embassy in Kabul was bombarded with rockets shot by Islamic mujahideen. An Afghan exile, who monitored Radio Kabul, said that this was the fourth jihadist attack this month on the Russian Embassy.

- September 23, 1981: In Cyprus, the Shoham shipping company in Limassol was the target of a grenade attack. Five young Greek Cypriot employees were wounded. The company represented the Israeli shipping firm, Zim.

Two Arab Muslims were arrested in connection with the attack. They claimed to be members of the Palestinian terrorist group headed by Abu Nidal. The two jihadists carried maps and instructions for attacks on other Cypriot targets. Authorities believed Abu Nidal intended to blackmail the Cypriot government into releasing two Jordanian convicts who were serving life sentences for previous murders.

- September 24, 1981: In France, four armed members of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia - Suicide Commandos of Yeghia Kechichian, shot their way into Turkish consular offices in Paris. Armed with automatic weapons and grenades rather than evidence and words, they held 51 people hostage, most of whom were Turkish immigrant workers. A Turkish guard was killed. The Turkish vice consul was also seriously wounded in the chest and was released by the gunmen. Their motivation was obvious: Islamic Turks had murdered a million Armenians in genocidal rage.

In Beirut, an ASALA-SCYK spokesman, Ara Toranian, said the attackers would kill their hostages if their demands were not met. Further, they would blow up the building if the French tried to intervene. The ASALA-SCYK demanded the Turkish government free Armenian political prisoners within 12 hours and fly them to Paris. As usual, however, the Turkish military junta refused to deal with the Armenians and said there were no political prisoners in Turkish jails.

Notes were tossed from the window listing demands identical to those issued in Beirut indicating coordinated actions. After fifteen hours, when the deadline had passed without incident, the remaining three terrorists, one of which was wounded, surrendered peacefully requesting political asylum from the French government. None of the hostages were harmed. One of the terrorists hanged himself in his cell on April 13, 1985. He, along with three others, had been sentenced to seven years imprisonment.

- September 26, 1981: Off the Western Sahara coast, the Portuguese fishing vessel Porto Ceu was attacked by Polisario Muslims. One fisherman was killed and three others were wounded.

- September 29, 1981: An Indian Airlines plane carrying 111 passengers and a crew of six was hijacked by five Sikh militants carrying the knives and swords customary of the Sikh warriors. But should these weapons be insufficient, the religious terrorists also carried a stash of hand grenades.

The Sikhs were a religious group from northern India. They were seeking a separate, independent Sikh state. The hijackers forced the crew of the domestic flight from New Delhi, to fly them to Lahore, Pakistan, threatening them with small daggers called kirpans which all orthodox Sikh men are required to carry at all times in their hair.

Six hours after the landing in Lahore, the hijackers released 67 passengers, including women, children, foreigners, and members of their own Sikh sect. The hijackers refused to negotiate directly with Indian government representatives and made no demands. Instead, in the Indian city of Amritsar, the site of the Sikhs' holiest shrine, a Sikh separatist organization demanded the release of Sikh militants from Indian jails.

A member of the governing council of the Sikh group said the hijacking was intended to "focus the attention of the world to the demands of the Sikhs." These demands included the release of Jarnail Singh Bhinderwale, leader of the militant Sikh sect, who was arrested the previous week in connection with the slaying of a Hindu journalist who had criticized Sikh separatism. They also demanded a half-million dollar ransom and a meeting with the press. It was little wonder they chose to make these requests in the capital of Islamic terrorism, Lahore, Pakistan. They sounded more like Muslims, than jihadists.

But the Sikh-Islamic alliance was not to be. Ninety minutes before the deadline, Pakistani commandos dressed as cleaning men entered the plane, overpowered the hijackers and rescued the hostages.

Indian Airlines officials reported that the leader of the group had been identified as Gajender Singh, an officer of the Dal Khalsa, or Society of the Pure. The Dal Khalsa was an organization of students and other young Sikh separatists. Seven weeks earlier in an interview, Singh said that his group had sought to pattern itself after the Palestine Liberation Organization, and that as a result, they were prepared to use terrorism. Singh called terror: "the political language of the 20th century." So the Sikhs were acting like Muslims because they were copying Islamic tactics.

- September 29, 1981: In luxury car parked near a restaurant in a south Lebanon village exploded killing 15 people and injuring at least 40 others - most of whom were innocent bystanders. The car exploded a short distance from a checkpoint where Hizballah and PLO militia units were searching for explosive devices.

- October 1, 1981: A car bomb exploded in the crowded Palestinian quarter of Beirut killing 83 people and wounding another 300. The explosion took among small shops and buildings housing the offices of the PLO. One of those included that of Abu Iyad, second in command to Yasser Arafat in Fatah.

A PLO spokesman laid the blame for the blast on the United States and Israel. That claim was challenged by the mysterious, perhaps even mythical, Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners. Palestinians carrying machine guns hung out the windows of the ambulances, spraying bullets in the air to keep traffic out of the way. It was the Muslim version of a siren. Heavily armed Muslim militants erected checkpoints in a four-block perimeter around the PLO offices.

- October 6, 1981: A bomb killed a senior official of the PLO in his Rome hotel room. Majed Abu Sharar, also a member of Fatah's Executive Committee, was attending a writer's conference in Rome.

A spokesman representing the homicidal madness of the PLO terrorist organization blamed Israel for the attack, calling Abu Sharar a victim of the "homicidal madness of Israeli terrorists." However, shortly after the explosion, which was believed to have been caused by a booby-trapped telephone, the assassination was claimed in the name of the General Command of Al Assifa. They were an Al Fatah derivative supported and controlled by the Syrian military in conjunction with Palestinian dissident, Abu Nidal - a former PLO and Fatah diplomat. So if the PLO spokesman was right, Israel was running Syria, Fatah, and the PLO.

Nidal broke with Arafat in the early 70s over the issue of Kuwaiti OPEC funding of Islamic terrorism. The Al Assifa spokesperson stated that Majed Abu Sharar had been assassinated because "he represented the line of surrender and was trying to compromise the principles of our revolution.".

- October 6, 1981: In Turkey, anti-Khomeini forces shot up and ransacked the Iranian consulate in Istanbul to protest the mounting violence and number of executions occurring in the Khomeini religious regime. Three Muslims were wounded in the shooting and seizure. The 26 masked Iranians, said to be students, held the consulate for about an hour before Turkish police surrounded the building and broke the siege.

- October 6, 1981: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by the al-Jihad Islamic terrorist group that is now called al-Qaeda after the merger. The assassination order was issued by the highest ranking Qur'anic scholar on earth, Sheikh Omar Abdel ar-Rahman, head of Qur'anic studies at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt - Islam's leading academic institution.

Egypt's Supreme Court would later exonerate ar-Rahman even though he publicly supported the murder. His defense was that the Qur'an and Sunnah (the words and example of Muhammad) demanded that good Muslims kill peaceful, hypocritical Muslims. This blind Islamic cleric was then given a visa to enter the United States where, after receiving a tumultuous welcome by Muslims in America, he not only preached the terrorist message of Islam, he lived it - planning the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Here is a transcript of Sheikh ar-Rahman's trial:.

Sheikh Rahman: "Justice should be according to what Allah has set for the Muslims only. Allah's lordship should be acknowledged by all Muslims. The people who carry out Islamic justice are faithful believers who obey Allah's commands and the prophet Muhammad's teachings. Imported laws from infidel countries like the USA and Europe are man-made and are not according to Allah's laws. Anyone who alters or compromises Allah's laws, or who submits to a compromise or alteration is a renegade infidel. The Qur'an orders us to kill renegades. What I am saying is not my opinion, but is what Allah's book says. A Muslim leader cannot be a friend of the Jews or be a supporter of Israel. An Islamic leader must not abandon Allah's law and comply with the laws of the infidels.".

Attorney General: "The belief that Allah is the lawmaker and the only judge does not mean that if our Islamic society finds solution according to our social and mental standards of living today that so doing makes it a renegade, infidel society.".

Sheikh Rahman: "Disobeying Allah and his law in the name of convenience has only one meaning - it is sinful. Those who do are lost infidels who have abandoned Allah. They are the ones whom Allah commanded the Muslims to kill in Jihad.".

Attorney General: "Jihad is not killing. This is not Islam's teaching. Jihad is a spiritual fight against evil, poverty, sickness, and sin. Killing is only from the devil.".

There isn't a single Qur'an verse or Hadith that even remotely supports this definition. The Islamic scholar, unlike the American media, knew that Egypt's Attorney General was lying.

Sheikh Rahman: "From where does the Attorney General come up with this understanding? Are there verses in the Qur'an that I don't know about that say jihad is a spiritual fight against evil, poverty, sickness and sin? Perhaps there is a new inspiration from Allah that our Attorney General received recently and the rest of the Muslims do not yet have. Mr. Attorney General, your ideas are from the devil.".

In other words, the Qur'an and Muhammad have a single definition of Jihad, and here it is directly from Islam's second leading academic institution, one financed by the Sauds: "Al-Jihad (the holy fighting) in Allah's Cause (with full force of number and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihad Islam is established, Allah's Word is made superior (which means none has the right to be worshipped by Allah) and His Religion (Islam) is propagated. By abandoning Jihad (may Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position, their honor is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape the this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfill this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite" Bukhari's , page 580 & The Nobel Qur'an, page 39, in reference to Qur'an 2:190.

Attorney General: "If any Muslim society confesses that Allah is the only God and that Muhammad is his prophet, no one has the right to accuse them of being infidels.".

Sheikh Rahman: "What you say is not the real truth. Someone can confess that Allah is God and that Muhammad is his prophet, but he can do something against his confession, and this takes him outside of Islam." In other words, there are no moderate or peaceful Muslims.

Attorney General: "President Al-Sadat was a great man who sacrificed his life for the love of Allah and the love of his country.".

Sheikh Rahman: "Do you know how this man sacrificed his life for the love of his country? He is the same man who declared that all religions are equal. He made the infidels and the grandchildren of the monkeys and pigs [the Qur'anic definition of Jews] equal to the Muslims. He made the world's greatest criminal murderer his dear friend [referring to Begin, Israel's prime minister]. This man who you claim sacrificed his life for Allah broke all of Allah's laws in this country. He even described the Muslim women's veil as a tent. This man insulted Allah when he danced with and hugged women publicly [Sadat danced with Mrs. Carter on national television.] This man led our country to free enterprise and nearly destroyed our economy [Since Islam means submission, and Allah said that there is no choice, there can be no freedoms in an Islamic society, including free-enterprise.]. He led our country to moral and social disaster.".

The Qur'an orders good Muslims to fight non-Muslims until the whole world submits to Allah in Islam. The mastermind of Anwar Sadat's murder not only justified the assassination using the Qur'an and Muhammad's example, he was declared "not guilty" under Islamic law.

- October 7, 1981: Rome's El Al airlines office was bombed. Simultaneously, the town center of Ostia, a community west of Rome where thousands of Soviet Jews lived as they waited for visas to the United States, was bombed. Five people, two of them Soviet Jews, three of them Italians, were injured in the town square blast because the bomb was deployed where the Jews traditionally gathered in the evening to chat. The attack was timed to coincide with Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

- October 9, 1981: Palestinian terrorists in Lebanon wounded the chief of staff of the U.N. peacekeeping force as he drove through the Palestinian area of the U.N. sector. Brigadier General James Onoja of Nigeria was shot in his left shoulder. His driver was also wounded. The U.N. peacekeeping staff lodged a protest with the PLO headquarters in Beirut.

- October 11, 1981: Bombs exploded in two Yugoslav restaurants in Munich within a few hours of each other. The explosives were planted in protest of the recent murder of a Croatian exile living in Munich. Two people were injured in the bombings and there was considerable property damage.

- October 19, 1981: In France, a Croatian Ustashi Fascist was killed by a bomb planted under his car in the south of Paris. Mate Kolic, 41, detonated the plastic explosive when he switched on the ignition. His wife, who was also in the car was seriously wounded. Kolic, a Yugoslav citizen, was a member of the Croatian Ustashi. Rival Croatian groups claimed responsibility for this and a number of other violent incidents in France.

- October 20, 1981: An Antwerp synagogue was car-bombed by Muslim militants, killing two and wounding 99. The bomb exploded in a truck near a synagogue shortly before a scheduled Jewish ceremony. The enormous blast destroyed much of the thriving diamond district of Antwerp's Jewish quarter.

An anonymous caller told the Belgian news agency Belga the attack was carried out by the "Group of Direct Action - Belgian Section." This French leftist organization had never perpetrated any violent act outside French borders so the claim of responsibility was not credible. Moreover, the official spokesperson for Direct Action called the French press moments after they were fingered and completely disclaimed the incident.

The following day the murderous assault was claimed by Black_September. Their spokesman said that three more bomb attacks were planned against Jews in Belgium. He ended the call shouting several times: "Palestine will conquer.".

On the same Jewish festival last year, a bomb attached to a parked motorbike exploded in Paris outside a synagogue on the Rue Copernic, killing four people. (See October 3, 1980) Other similarities with the Paris synagogue attack and the Antwerp one appeared when the owner of the van was traced. It had been purchased a few days earlier by Nicolas Brazzi and his female companion. They were traced to a Brussels hotel, where he registered claiming Cypriot nationality, just as was claimed by Panadryu, the owner of the motorbike which blew up outside the Paris synagogue. Both Muslims were members of the PLO's Black_September.

Following the Jordanian genocide against Palestinians in September 1970, the terrorist organization known as Black_September was formed. An outgrowth of Arafat's Fatah, the Arab League's PLO, and Egypt's Fedayeen, they claimed to be descendants of Hasan's Hashshashin/Assassins of Persian and Crusade infamy. Since Black_September was formed as a clandestine wing of al-Fatah and the PLO, their initial objective was to avenge the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization from Jordan.

While the exact date of the ghoulish club's founding is suspect, what is clear is that Black_September is best known for the kidnap and murder of eleven Jewish athletes during the September 1972 Munich Olympic Games. But that was hardly their only crime against mankind.

In his book Stateless, Salah Khalaf, Arafat's security chief and founding member of al-Fatah, wrote: "Black_September was not a terrorist organization, but was rather an auxiliary unit of the resistance movement, at a time when the latter was unable to fully realize its military and political potential. The members of the BSO always denied any ties between their organization and Fatah or the PLO." But Salah Khalaf's confusing claim was confounded by Muhammad Daoud Oudeh, a senior Black_September leader as well as a senior leader in the PLO. In his 1972 article in the Jordanian Al-Dustur, he said: "There is no such organization as Black_September. Fatah announces its own operations under this name so that Fatah will not appear as the direct executor of the mission." Others say, Arafat formed Black_September in part in order to circumvent an al-Fatah declaration that they would not interfere in the domestic policies of Arab/Islamic nations. Since PLO members wanted to assassinate King Hussein, they therefore needed an alias.

While Black_September failed several times to assassinate King Hussein, they nonetheless became notorious for a number of brutal, high-profile terrorist incidents. With his involvement obscured, Yasser Arafat used the BSO to expand his list of targets to include U.S. and European citizens. In retaliation for Black_September's infamous attack against Israeli athletes and coaches, Israel launched a significant response designed to eliminate the terrorist organization's leadership. Following the Israeli success, al-Fatah dissolved Black_September in December 1974.

Most Black_September operatives were Muslims who had assumed residence in other countries, especially Europe. They were composed of Islamic students, teachers, and diplomats. At the time, the BSO served as a relief valve for jihadists who were impatient with the Fatah/PLO approach of blending politics, religion, money-making schemes, and terror. They were the purest forum for the wares of the fedayeen. As a result, Black_September became uncontrollable. When the PLO shut the organization down, Arafat said that he wanted to withdraw from perpetrating acts of terror abroad so that he could concentrate on tormenting Jews.

Upon al-Fatah's decision to sideline Black_September, many of BSO members joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and other active Islamic terrorist clubs. Attacks in the name of Black_September continued long after the official dissolution of the Fedayeen revival. And while Black_September was originally described as a splinter group of al-Fatah, direct linkages between the groups were confirmed with the arrests of many Black_September terrorists who had long and histories with the PLO.

Abu Iyad, a Black_September founder, was born in 1934. He fought in 1948 alongside the Islamic Mufti's defense forces during Israel's War of Independence. He would later retreat to Cairo where he became a student in the 1950s. Abu Iyad was Arafat's assistant in the General Union of Palestinian Students in Egypt way back in 1952. He was a Fatah founding member in 1958.

Iyad served as the PLO's security and counter intelligence executive officer and spiritual godfather prior to becoming the commander of Black_September, a job he retained through 1974. All the while, Abu Iyad was a Fatah ideologue. Before being assassinated on March 14, 1991 in Tunis, Iyad was the PLO's third-highest ranking member after Arafat and Abu Jihad.

Mohammad Oudeh planned Black_September's notorious attack at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. In 1996, Israel allowed Oudeh to attend a PLO conference in the West Bank. He would later publish a book in which he admitted to his role in the Olympics attack. More than a decade late, Germany issued a warrant for his arrest and Israel barred Oudeh from returning to the West Bank.

- October 23, 1981: In Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega, the leader of Nicaragua's ruling junta announced the shooting deaths of two Cuban school teachers by antigovernment Marxist terrorists in a remote village.

- October 25, 1981: The Egyptian government tourist office was firebombed in New York. There were no injuries. The Molotov cocktails were thrown through the window of the building. A caller alleging to be a member of the Jewish Defense League claimed responsibility, saying the bombing was a protest against the Camp David peace agreement which should be "buried with Sadat." His target was appropriate and his conclusions were astute, but his tactics were flawed.

- November 7, 1981: In Lebanon, the Saudi Arabian commercial attaché escaped a kidnapping attempt when three gunmen failed to gain entrance into the diplomat's car. The Saudi's bodyguard fought off the jihadists. Muhammad Salih Al-Madani was wounded in the leg but survived. The Syrian-funded, Abu Nidal directed, Islamic Palestinian group Assifa was suspected.

- November 12, 1981: A young Arab Muslim fired a half-dozen rounds at a U.S. diplomat in an assassination attempt outside the man's apartment near the Eiffel Tower. Charge d'Affaires, Christian Chapman, 60, said he escaped injury by ducking behind his chauffeur-driven embassy after seeing a man reach into his black leather jacket. Chapman described the gunman as a Middle Eastern man. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction.

- November 25, 1981: In Iraq, three Austrians were kidnapped by Kurds and taken to a camp in a mountainous region of Iran. A special emissary of the Austrian Foreign Ministry was dispatched to Iran to obtain their release.

- November 30, 1981: In Syria, a car bomb planted in a crowded Damascus street killed 64 people and wounded 135 others. The mysterious and perhaps mythical, Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners allegedly claimed responsibility. Since the FLLF was said to be allied with the Syrian government, the claim was dubious. In all likelihood, PLO Muslims were attacking Syria for Syria's bloody assault on the PLO headquarters in Beirut.

- December 5, 1981: Lebanese president-elect Kamal Jumblatt was assassinated.

- December 7, 1981: In a bid to force Libya's Colonel Qadhafi to return a Shiite Muslim leader, three AMAL terrorists hijacked a Libyan Airlines jet carrying 47 passengers on a flight from Zurich to Tripoli. The hijack took place over Italian airspace and the hijackers forced the crew to fly to Beirut.

There, after negotiations with Shia and Lebanese officials, a pregnant woman and two children were released. Then, the gunmen shot and wounded a hostage and declared they would kill the wounded man and other hostages if the plane were not refueled. After refueling, the terrorists took the airliner and hostages on an arduous three-day trip to Athens, Rome, Tehran, and two additional stopovers in Beirut.

While on the ground in Beirut the second time, the terrorists picked up additional members of AMAL, bringing the number of armed Muslim militants to five. On the last landing in Beirut, following five hours of negotiations, they gave themselves up and freed their hostages. This represented the sixth hijacking by the Shiite members of AMAL in their quest to facilitate the return of their religious leader.

Qaddafi claimed that the Imam Musa Sadr completed his visit in Tripoli and boarded a plane for Rome. Italian police reported that the Imam's luggage did arrive in the city but there was no evidence that the cleric accompanied it.

The Shi'ite Islamic Imam Musa Sadr formed the terrorist association known as AMAL in 1975. Despite the founder's Iranian heritage, AMAL was conceived to increase the influence of Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim population through the application of terror. In addition, the group was interested in establishing a theocratic Islamic state in place of Moamar Qadhafi's Sunni-leaning Marxist Muslim government.

The group's name had a double meaning. While amal means "hope" in Arabic, AMAL is an acronym for: "Afwaj al Muqawama Al Lubnaniya," or "Lebanese Resistance Detachments.".

Musa Sadr (Sayyed Moussa as-Sadr), AMAL's founder, was born in Qum, Iran. He moved to Lebanon in 1960 when he took over a religious position in the town of Tyre. In 1974, as part of his clerical duties, Imam Musa Sadr formed the "Movement of the Deprived" to advance the political interests of the Shi'ites in Lebanon. Then, contemporaneous with the outbreak of Lebanon's civil war in 1975, Musa Sadr founded AMAL as the terrorist wing of his Movement of the Deprived.

AMAL would go on murder scores of religious rivals using the tactic of terrorism. The more they killed, the more popular Amal grew, with an ever increasing number of Lebanese Shi'ites joining in to attack Sunnis. Amal's popularity soared following Israel's entry into Lebanon in 1978, when the Jewish nation had come to destroy the PLO's Lebanese base of operations. Amal jihadists set their sectarian differences aside long enough to accompany Palestinians in southern Lebanon as they attacked Jews.

With the death of Musa Sadr in 1978, control of AMAL passed to Nabih Berri. While Musa Sadr was an Islamic clergyman, Nabih Berri was a secular politician. Consequently, Berri became more interested in the political goals of the Lebanese Shi'tites, and a little less interested in the creation of a theocratic Islamic state.

Nabih Berri was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where his parents had moved for economic opportunity like many Lebanese Shi'ites at the time. After returning to Lebanon, he studied law and quickly became a political activist. He served as an attorney for General Motors in Detroit between 1976 and 1978. Berri returned to Lebanon in 1978 when the opportunity arose to command Musa Sadr's Amal terrorist organization. Under Berri's leadership, AMAL fought against the PLO, against Druze forces, and eventually against Hizballah when they claimed his source of funding.

In 1992, Berri became Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, the highest political post for a Lebanese Shi'ite. Syrian-funded AMAL gave Berri deep political connections with Damascus, causing Berri to be seen in Lebanon as a tool of the Syrians, implementing Syrian demands while extorting both the Syrian government and the Shi'ite community for financial gain.

Despite Berri's secularism, AMAL initially benefited from the 1978-1979 Iranian revolution. With an Islamic clerical regime empowered in Iran, from 1979 to 1982, the Shi'a terrorist group received substantial financial assistance from the OPECing mullahs. But AMAL's time of basking in the crude would be short lived because in 1982, the Iranian theocracy founded their own terrorist club, Hizballah (Hezbollah) - Allah's Party. With Hizballah's founding, Amal lost Iran'