A look at some of most notorious terror acts committed by George Habash’s PFLP

27 January 2008
JORDAN –  Founder of the radical Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, responsible for the hijacking of a Swiss Air Craft in 1970, died on Saturday in Jordan.

A look at the PFLP’s most notorious acts:

July 22, 1968 – PFLP diverts an El Al airliner en route from Rome to Israel. After a hostage standoff in Algeria, all passengers and crew are eventually released.

September 6, 1970 – Habash commandos hijack three airliners, Swiss Air, BOAC and TWA, and take them to a desert airstrip outside Amman, Jordan. Most passengers are released by September 12, when the Palestinians blow up the three planes, but 54 people are held hostage for 24 days. A fourth jet is flown to Cairo and blown up.

May 31, 1972 – The group uses Japanese Red Army terrorists to conduct a machine-gun attack at Lod Airport near Tel Aviv. Twenty-seven civilians, including 16 Puerto Rican tourists visiting Israel, are killed.

June 27, 1976 – The PFLP helps hijack an Air France airliner to Entebbe, Uganda, where four civilians are killed during a rescue operation by Israeli paratroopers.

October 13, 1977 – Habash’s men hijack a Lufthansa airliner to Mogadishu, Somalia, demanding the release of terrorists held in German jails. German commandos move onto the plane, killing three hijackers and capturing a fourth. One commando and four passengers are wounded.

August 20, 1978 – Gunmen using machine guns and a hand grenade attack a bus carrying an El Al crew as it stops at a London hotel. A hostess is killed, another is seriously injured and five others including pedestrians are hospitalized with bullet wounds. PFLP claims responsibility.

October 17, 2001 – Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi assassinated at a Jerusalem hotel. PLFP claims responsibility, saying it was in retaliation for Israel killing a former leader of the organization, Ali Abu Mustafa.
[Copyright ap 2008]