Key terrorists enjoyed Hussein’s warmth, some so recently that Coalition forces subsequently found them alive and well and living in Iraq. Among them:
o U.S. Special Forces nabbed Abu Abbas last April 14 just outside Baghdad. Abbas masterminded the October 7–9, 1985, Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking in which Abbas’s men shot passenger Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year old Manhattan retiree, then rolled him, wheelchair and all, into the Mediterranean. Abbas briefly was in Italian custody at the time, but was released that October 12 because he possessed an Iraqi diplomatic passport. Since 2000, Abbas resided in Baghdad, still under Saddam Hussein’s protection.[10]
o Khala Khadr al Salahat, a member of the ANO, surrendered to the First Marine Division in Baghdad on April 18. As the Sunday Times of London reported on August 25, 2002, a Palestinian source said that al Salahat and Nidal had furnished Libyan agents the Semtex bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killing 259 on board and 11 on the ground. The 189 Americans murdered on the sabotaged Boeing 747 included 35 Syracuse University students who had spent the fall semester in Scotland and were heading home for the holidays.[11]
o Before fatally shooting himself in the head with four bullets on August 16, 2002, as straight-faced Baathist officials claimed, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal (born Sabri al Banna) had lived in Iraq since at least 1999. As the Associated Press’s Sameer N. Yacoub reported on August 21, 2002, the Beirut office of the ANO said that he entered Iraq “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities.”[12] Nidal’s attacks in 20 countries killed at least 275 people and wounded some 625 more. Among other atrocities, an ANO-planted bomb exploded on a TWA airliner as it flew from Israel to Greece on September 8, 1974. The jet was destroyed over the Ionian Sea, killing all 88 people on board.[13]
· Coalition troops have shut down at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq, including a base approximately 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, called Salman Pak.[14] Before the war, numerous Iraqi defectors had said that the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills.[15]
“There have been several confirmed sightings of Islamic fundamentalists from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Gulf states being trained in terror tactics at the Iraqi intelligence camp at Salman Pak,” said Khidir Hamza, Iraq’s former nuclear-weapons chief, in sworn testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 31, 2002. “The training involved assassination, explosions, and hijacking.”[16]
“This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world,” former Iraqi army captain Sabah Khodada told PBS’s Frontline TV program in an October 14, 2001 interview.[17] Khodada, who worked at Salman Pak, said, “Training includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes, trains, public buses, and planting explosives in cities . . . how to prepare for suicidal operations.” Khodada added, “We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes. . . . They are even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in the plane.” A map of the camp that Khodada drew from memory for Frontline closely matches satellite photos of Salman Pak, further bolstering his credibility.[18]
