Wadie Haddad

Wadie Haddad
وديع حداد
Haddad in Syria, c. 1970
Born1927
Safed, British Mandate for Palestine
Died28 March 1978(1978-03-28) (aged 50–51)
East Berlin, German Democratic Republic
NationalityPalestinian
Other namesAbu Hani
Alma materAmerican University of Beirut
Years active1951–1978
OrganizationPFLP–EO

Wadie Haddad (Arabic: وديع حداد; 1927 – 28 March 1978), also known by the kunya Abu Hani (أبو هاني), was a Palestinian militant and founding leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who later split to form the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations (PFLP-EO). Haddad organized several hijackings of international civilian passenger aircraft in the 1960s and 1970s.[1]

Early life and education

Haddad was born into a family of Palestinian Christians (Greek Orthodox) in the city of Safed in 1927.[2][3] His home was destroyed during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, prompting him to flee to Lebanon as a Palestinian refugee. He received a degree in medicine from the American University of Beirut,[3] where he met fellow Palestinian refugee George Habash, who was also a medical student. Together, they helped found the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), a political organization of pan-Arabists who sought to dismantle Israel and unite the world's Arab countries. Haddad became a leading member of the organisation.[4]

After graduating, he relocated with Habash to Amman, Jordan, where they established a medical clinic. He worked with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in 1956 but was arrested by Jordanian authorities in the following year due to his nationalist activities. In 1961, he managed to escape to Syria. From 1963 onwards, Haddad became a proponent of the armed struggle against Israel and succeeded in militarizing the ANM.

Relationship to the PFLP and other organisations

The ANM was one of the groups that came together to found the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in late 1967.[5] Haddad oversaw its Special Apparatus, which was responsible for so-called external operations - attacks conducted outside the borders of historic Palestine.[6] The Dawson's Field hijackings, organised by Haddad, were held within the PFLP to have provoked the Black September crackdown on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Jordan, and Haddad was extensively criticised, especially by the organisation's left. [7] At a central committee meeting in early November 1970, the PFLP agreed to suspend external operations in general and the tactic of airplane hijacking specifically.[8][9]

Haddad was later instructed to brief the whole PFLP leadership before conducting further external operations, but he refused to do so, saying that he would liaise only with George Habash, and to a lesser extent with three other senior figures.[10] Haddad paused hijackings for more than a year, but defied the moratorium by organising the hijack of Lufthansa Flight 649 in February 1972.[10] In reaction, the PFLP's third general conference on 7 March 1972 voted to dissolve the Special Apparatus and expel Haddad.[11] Haddad continued to be friendly with Habash, however, and channeled substantial funds to the PFLP over the following three years.[12]

According to Leila Khaled, Haddad was ultimately expelled from the PFLP only in 1976, after the PFLP-EO hijacked an Air France plane and forced the crew to land it at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.[9][13][14] Khaled has also said that Haddad maintained relationships with some PFLP members until his death in 1978.[15]

Haddad cooperated with non-PFLP organizations such as the Abu Nidal Organization, the West German Revolutionary Cells (RZ) and the Japanese Red Army. He also employed his PFLP protégé, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez ("Carlos the Jackal"), who remains imprisoned in France.[16]

During this time he was also friends with Swiss neo-Nazi, ODESSA facilitator, and former Abwehr agent, Francois Genoud.[17]

Ties to the Soviet KGB

According to Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior KGB archivist who defected to the UK in 1992, in early 1970 Haddad was recruited by the KGB as an agent, codenamed NATIONALIST. Thereafter, in deep secrecy the Soviets helped to fund and arm the PFLP. The KGB had warning of its major operations and almost certainly sanctioned the most significant, such as the September 1970 hijackings. Haddad remained a highly valued agent till his death in 1978.[18]

A letter by KGB chairman Yuri Andropov to Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader and head of the Communist Party, about the covert transfer of arms to the PFLP refers to Haddad as a "trusted KGB intelligence agent".[19] The letter and two other highly classified documents from the CPSU Central Committee archive were located and secretly copied by Vladimir Bukovsky in 1992.[20]

Death

Haddad died on 28 March 1978 in East Germany, reportedly from leukemia. According to the book Striking Back, published by Aaron J. Klein in 2006, Haddad was killed by Mossad, which had sent the chocolate-loving Haddad Belgian chocolates coated with a slow-acting and undetectable poison which caused him to die several months later.[21]

According to Ronen Bergman, Mossad killed Haddad by poisoning his toothpaste. On 10 January 1978, a deep-cover Mossad agent with a high level of access to Haddad's home and office switched his regular tube of toothpaste for an identical tube containing a toxin that had been developed at the Israel Institute for Biological Research. Some of the toxin penetrated the mucous membranes of his mouth and entered his bloodstream every time he brushed his teeth. Haddad became ill and was admitted to an Iraqi government hospital, where the doctors could not figure out what his condition was and suspected he had been poisoned. Upon Yasser Arafat's request, he was flown to East Germany to be hospitalized at a prestigious hospital which treated members of the intelligence and security communities, where he was admitted under the pseudonym of Ahmed Doukli.

According to Haddad, the tube of lethal toothpaste was included in a bag of toiletries his aides packed for him when he was taken to East Germany. He was extensively tested and the physicians suspected he had been poisoned with either rat poison or thallium, but found no direct evidence. His condition continued to deteriorate. According to intelligence provided by an Israeli agent in East Germany, Haddad's screams of pain were heard throughout the hospital and he had to be heavily dosed with tranquilizers and sedatives. Haddad died ten days after his arrival there.[22][23]

What remained of the PFLP-EO dissolved after Haddad's death, but in the process inaugurated the 15 May Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - Special Command (PFLP-SC) and the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions.[24]

References

  1. ^ "Wadie Haddad". www.sundance.tv. Archived from the original on 21 September 2015.
  2. ^ Thomas Riegler (2020). "When modern terrorism began The OPEC hostage-taking of 1975". In Dag Harald Claes; Giuliano Garavini (eds.). Handbook of OPEC and the Global Energy Order. Past, Present and Future Challenges (PDF). London: Routledge. p. 291. doi:10.4324/9780429203190. ISBN 9780429203190. S2CID 211416208.
  3. ^ a b Mark Ensalaco (2008). Middle Eastern Terrorism: From Black September to September 11. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-8122-4046-7. JSTOR j.ctt3fhmb0.
  4. ^ Sayigh 1997, p. 108.
  5. ^ Sayigh 1997, p. 166.
  6. ^ Sayigh 1997, p. 232.
  7. ^ Sayigh 1997, p. 272.
  8. ^ Sayigh 1997, p. 272, 304.
  9. ^ a b Irving 2012, p. 64-65.
  10. ^ a b Sayigh 1997, p. 304.
  11. ^ Sayigh 1997, p. 304-305.
  12. ^ Sayigh 1997, p. 305.
  13. ^ Melman, Yossi (8 July 2011). "Setting the record straight: Entebbe was not Auschwitz". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 5 November 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
  14. ^ Saul, David (2017). Operation Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe Airport, the Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission in History. Back Bay Books. ISBN 978-0-316-24539-5. But, as Ilan Hartuv and others were later quick to point out, this was never a simple division of Jews and non-Jews. Many non-Israeli Jews like Julie Aouzerate, Michel Cojot and Peter and Nancy Rabinowitz remained in the original room.
  15. ^ Irving 2012, p. 65.
  16. ^ "Carlos the Jackal faces new trial". BBC News. 4 May 2007. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
  17. ^ Coogan, Kevin (1999). Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International. Brooklyn: Autonomedia. p. 586. ISBN 978-1-57027-039-0.
  18. ^ "23 April 1974 (1071-A/ov) Haddad: Andropov to Brezhnev". July 2016. Retrieved 4 July 2024 – via The Bukovsky Archives.
  19. ^ "16 May 1975 (1218-A/ov) Haddad: Andropov to Brezhnev". July 2016. Retrieved 4 July 2024 – via The Bukovsky Archives.
  20. ^ "Night of the Looters (1996)". The Bukovsky Archives. 23 January 2015. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  21. ^ "Israel used chocs to poison Palestinian". Sydney Morning Herald. 8 May 2008. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  22. ^ Bergman, Ronen (2008). Rise and Kill First. pp. 212–213.
  23. ^ Horovitz, David (26 January 2018). "Mossad chose not to nab Mengele, didn't hunt down Munich terrorists, book claims". Times of Israel. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  24. ^ Terrorist Group Profiles. DIANE Publishing. 1989. p. 19. ISBN 9781568068640.

Sources

Further reading

  • Bassam Abu Sharif; Uzi Mahnaimi (1995). The Best of Enemies: The Memoirs of Bassam Abu-Sharif and Uzi Mahnaimi. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-00401-4.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.