Now Abu Nidal is finding ways to make ruthlessness a good business. Intelligence sources say he is expanding his territory–have terror, will travel. He has long found a home in such militant states as Iraq, Libya and Syria. But although the host governments deny it, U.S. intelligence experts say Abu Nidal has established branch offices in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and a training camp in Sudan.
Abu Nidal’s expansionism marks a comeback for the mastermind of the massacres at the Rome and Vienna airports in 1985. In the late'80s, Abu Nidal’s organization was racked by internal feuds and hurt by the end of the cold war, which cost him some rear bases and front companies in the old East bloc. He sat out the Persian Gulf War in Libya, ignoring pleas from longtime patron Saddam Hussein. Once it was clear who would win, he rushed to Saddam’s enemies. Over the last year he has stretched his client list through propaganda, financial enticements, threats and blackmail -without severing his old ties. That diversification helps him establish sanctuaries and also assuages the reluctance each Arab state has about being the sole sponsor of his organization. The Saudis and Kuwaitis don’t want to hire Abu Nidal; they merely hope they can buy protection from him by giving him sanctuary. “He’s making every deal he can,” says Georgetown University counterterrorism expert Robert Kupperman.
U.S. intelligence officials fear that this is the prelude to a new round of violence. Abu Nidal’s operatives can still carry out trademark spectaculars. But more worrisome are clues that his people plan more small hits, in more places, for more customers. International Security Management Inc., a security-consulting firm, identified more than a half-dozen instances of Abu Nidal activity around the world after the invasion of Kuwait, and some counterterrorism experts say they suspect that Abu Nidal’s men killed a U.S. computer specialist and wounded an Egyptian diplomat in Turkey last fall on behalf of Teheran. They have not ruled out his involvement in the car bombing last month of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, for which Lebanon’s fundamentalist Party of God took credit. And once sanctions against Iraq are lifted, Abu Nidal’s men may again mount attacks on Saddam’s behalf using Iraq’s embassy network. “I don’t think he broke with Iraq,” says a ranking Palestinian source. “He will be operational the day there is no longer an embargo on the embassies.”
How could any group work for countries as mutually hostile as Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia? “This guy is a mercenary,” says Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism officer. “He’s not an ideologue. He won’t do anything now unless there’s a profit in it.“By expanding his client list, Abu Nidal has set himself up for fat pickings. “It’s important who is the highest bidder,” says Marwan Bishara, editor of a Paris-based Mideast newsletter. “He may get paid by the Iraqis for doing something. He may also get paid much better by the Saudis for not doing something.” U.S. intelligence sources say the Saudis gave Abu Nidal $15 million in protection money during the war; meanwhile, the State Department reports that Libya still provides him with “several million dollars annually” and recently allowed him to ,‘significantly” expand his camp there.
Although he lives in Tripoli, Abu Nidal controls his agents through a secretariat baSed in Lebanon, according to a new book by British journalist Patrick Seale. Counterterrorism officials think the group has a clandestine force of 50 to 200 operatives, perhaps 800 soldiers in southern Lebanon and more than 1,000 sympathizers worldwide. The Abu Nidal organization’s bankroll may be as big as $150 million.
With finances like that, it’s no wonder his reach extends beyond the Arab states. France, Austria and Belgium once cut deals with Abu Nidal or his sponsors to keep him from mounting attacks on their soil, according to intelligence sources. But Abu Nidal has also deployed agents to Latin America-such countries as Peru and Argentina. The FBI even found a support cell in New York City, NEWSWEEK has learned. And his agents have been spotted recently back in Europe trying to rebuild the group’s infrastructure, say U.S. intelligence sources. “For the moment at least he’s lying low,” says Seale. “But for how long.?”
Once Abu Nidal repositions himself as a terrorist everyman, trouble seems inevitable. In the short term, Libya’s fears of U.S. retaliation over the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 will act as a brake on him. But if the Mideast peace process appears to be succeeding, Iran and other would-be wreckers may call on him to turn up the heat. Should it fail, such former clients as Syria may return to terror as a tool of policy. And few experts doubt that Saddam Hussein will retaliate when he feels he can. For the moment, no government is giving the world’s most feared terrorist what he needs to strike: the active cooperation of a sponsoring secret service. But that is scant comfort to those marveling at how adroitly he has set himself up to make a killing.
