Page 299 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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Arafat and the PLO. Abbas, who had been deputy
PAGAD. See PEOPLE AGAINST general secretary of the PLF before it split into three
GANGSTERISM AND DRUGS. groups, remained loyal to Arafat during the 1980s
when many others began to defect. Abbas became a
member of the PLO Executive Committee in 1984.

PALESTINE LIBERATION UNIQUE INVASION METHODS
FRONT–ABU ABBAS FACTION
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Abbas became
famous for planning numerous unorthodox attacks
The Abu Abbas-led faction of the Palestine on Israel, many of which were foiled. In 1979, a four-
Liberation Front (PLF), which has had headquarters member PLF crew, carrying machine guns and shoulder-
in Lebanon, Tunisia, and Iraq, first became known for launched grenades, paddled a rubber dinghy from
using hang gliders and hot air balloons in bizarre Lebanon to invade Israel via the Mediterranean Sea.
terror attacks against Israel. The group later came According to press reports, the squad landed in the
to world attention during the 1985 hijacking of the Israeli town of Nahariya and held a family hostage
cruise ship Achille Lauro, in which a disabled, elderly inside their home. They killed the father, his daughter,
New Yorker was killed and his body dumped over- and a police officer and injured four others.
board. Two years later, two PLF members left Lebanon in
During the mid-1970s, the PLF was formed by men hang gliders, attempting to fly over the electronic
who broke from the Popular Front for the Liberation fence at the border into the Haifa area of Israel. The
of Palestine–General Command (itself a breakaway PLF operatives were apparently planning to continue
faction of George Habash’s original Popular Front for gliding for as far as possible and, once over the border,
the Liberation of Palestine). The PLF, which began throw bombs and grenades from the air. Israeli forces
as a secular, Marxist group, later split into three fac- captured the gliders at the border. In just over a month,
tions: pro-Yasir Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Abbas’s men attacked again by air, this time aboard a
Organization, pro-Syrian, and pro-Libyan. Each fac- hot air balloon. As the floating balloon neared the
tion kept the original “Palestine Liberation Front” Israeli border, the Army shot it down. The two PLF
name, and claimed to be the main organization. The operatives fell to their death.
pro-PLO faction, which has the most members and As provocative and unconventional as these attacks
eventually absorbed one of the other splintered groups, were, international attention was gained only when
is led by Muhammad “Abu” Abbas. Because Abbas’s PLF members hijacked a cruise ship. On October 7,
faction was critical of both Syria and Libya, Iraq 1985, off Port Said, Egypt, PLF members from the
also backed the group, but it was most identified with Abbas faction took control of the Achille Lauro cruise

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