Black September back in action ?

Press, 21 February 1978, Page 8

Black September back in action ?

NZPA-Reuter London Black September, the small Arab guerrilla organisation whose spectacular and ruthless tactics left a bloody trail in the early 19705, may be back in action, according to an Egyptian newspaper. The group is still cloaked in mystery almost six years after it claimed responsibility for the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. If the report by the Cairo newspaper, “Al-Gomhouria,” is correct, it means that Black September is on the move again after being dormant for nearly five years. “Al-Gomhouria” has blamed BlacK September, acting in collusion with the Libyans and Iraqis, for the killing of the editor of “AlAhram” (Mr Yossef Sibai) at a conference in Cyprus on Saturday and the taking of 11 hostages. Black September was named in bitter memory of September, 1970, when King Hussein’s army almost wiped out the Palestinian guerrillas in Jordan. The Black September

forces brought a new dimension to the word hijack as they attacked Israeli and Western airliners. The group conducted operations on a world-wide basis, but its leaders, its members, and its organisational set-up remained unclear.

In November. 1971, Black September took direct revenge against Jordan with the murder of the Jordanian Prime Minister, Wasif Tell, at the Sheraton Hotel in Cairo. One of the murderers knelt and lapped up some of Mr Tell’s blood, according to reports at the time. The next two years were Black September’s most active period. Apart from the Olympic Games raid in 1972, the group claimed responsibility for a series of spectacular incidents. These included the blowing up of oil tanks in Italy, the murder of five Jordanians in West Germany, the hijacking of a Belgian airliner to Lod Airport outside Tel Aviv, a commando raid on the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, and an attack on the American Embassy in Khartoum.