Black September

Black September, Palestinian guerrilla organization responsible for several notorious acts of terrorism in the 1970s. Palestinian guerrilla operations intensified after the defeat of the Arab armies by Israel and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Six-Day War in 1967. The build-up of irregular militia forces in countries bordering Israel led to a series of reprisals against the Palestinians, notably in Jordan, from where the Palestinian forces were expelled in September 1970. In the aftermath of the September events, the Jordanians closed all Palestine Liberation Organization institutions and arrested those leaders who had not managed to flee. These events in Jordan sparked the establishment of the Black September Organization, a group reputed to be run by the security and intelligence wing of Al Fatah, Jihaz ar-Rasd, tasked with carrying out operations.

Black September's first victim was the Jordanian prime minister, Wasfi Tell, who was regarded by some Palestinians as the architect of Jordan’s hostility towards them. He was assassinated in Cairo in 1971. The most notorious act of Black September was the seizure of Israeli athletes at the September 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In total 11 Israeli athletes, 5 terrorists, and 1 policeman were killed (2 of the Israelis were killed in the initial abduction and 9 died in a subsequent rescue attempt). Israel retaliated with raids on refugee camps and border villages in Lebanon. The Munich events caused Al Fatah to reject Black September operations and to expel from its ranks members who were associated with the group. One of these, Ahmed Abdel-Gaffer, defected to Libya and was later assassinated while on a visit to Beirut. The other, Sabri al-Banna (Abu Nidal), defected to Iraq, where he became the head of a renegade terrorist group operating not only against Israel and its allies internationally, but also against the Al Fatah leadership itself. Abu Nidal was reported to have died in Baghdad in August 2002, though whether as a result of assassination or suicide remained unclear. Black September was also responsible for a number of other attacks inside and outside the Arab world, including that on the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum in 1973 in which the United States Ambassador died. Black September was disbanded in 1974.