The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks Read online

  In reconstructing the movements of the group, police discovered that they had carried tiny paper dolls as good luck charms. The group had also used symbolism in their selection of passports. Okamoto claimed to be Daisuke Namba, who had been executed for the attempted assassination of Crown Prince Hirohito in 1923. His birth date was given as December 7, Pearl Harbor Day. Jiro Sugisaki, whose real name was Takeshi Okidoro, gave his birthday as February 26, 1937, when Japanese army officers had mutinied. The other dead man, who claimed to be Ken Torio, 23, was Yasuiki Yasuda, who claimed to be born on March 30, the date of the URA’s 1970 hijacking of a Japanese airliner. Included among those hijackers was Okamoto’s brother.

  PFLP spokesman Bassam Towfik Sherif (aka Bassam Zayad) claimed credit for the attack, saying that the group were members of the Squad of the Martyr Patrick Arguello, a Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) member who with Leila Khaled staged a foiled hijacking of an El Al plane on September 7, 1970, in the Netherlands. Bassam gave their PFLP names as Bassem, Salah, and Ahmed and said that the attack was in reprisal for the deaths of two Black September terrorists in the Sabena hijacking of May 6, 1972. After his gang had killed eight Israelis, Okamoto told Israeli officers that the group was named the Army of the Red Star.

  Okamoto was initially unwilling to talk to the authorities, asking for death. His interrogator, Gen. Zeevi (who had questioned captured terrorists Tannous and Hallasah in the Sabena hijacking), threw his pistol on the table in front of him and told Okamoto that he could turn it on himself if he signed the confession. Okamoto then began talking (it appears that Zeevi never intended to fulfill his part of the bargain). Okamoto studied agriculture at Kagoshima University in Japan. In early 1970, an Iraqi revolutionary, Bassim (who later married Leila Khaled), visited Tokyo and contacted the JRA. There the two organizations made a movie, PFLP—Red Army Declare World War. In November 1971, Okamoto was asked to show the film at Kagoshima and was invited to go to Beirut, where his brother was undergoing PFLP training. He said he was directed to depart Tokyo and go to Montreal, New York, and Paris. He was to fly first class on an El Al 717, observing security protocols. Upon arriving in Beirut, he was taxied to Baalbek, Lebanon, and stayed in a safe house with the other two JRA members. He recalled training in Port Said in explosives, shooting pistols and Kalashnikovs, and using hand grenades. On May 17, 1972, they trained for the specific attack.

  On May 22, 1972, they left Beirut for Paris and arrived in Rome on May 30, 1972. They booked a night in the Anglo American Hotel and then moved to the Scaligera Pension on the Via Nazionale, where Arabs often stayed. On May 30, 1972, they arrived at Leonardo da Vinci Airport for a flight to Tel Aviv. They passed through a body search, but their baggage was not searched. It appears that their trainer was Abu Hija, who had participated in the Zurich attack on February 18, 1969, under the name of Youssef. Maruoka Osamu was the fourth JRA member to be trained with the group and was wanted as an accomplice in the incident.

  Okamoto was charged with the military offense of political terrorism, which carried a death penalty under the 1945 British Emergency Regulations, initially applied to Irgun members. Max Kritzman, a Chicago-born attorney, was appointed to be Okamoto’s lawyer. Okamoto at first refused any counsel but accepted when told that the trial could not proceed without one. He sabotaged all attempts by Kritzman to provide a defense and tried to convince the court to sentence him to death. Court records quote Okamoto as saying:

  This was out of duty, to the people I slaughtered and to my two comrades, who lost their lives. It is my response with the other soldiers, to the people I killed. I take on myself full responsibility for it. . . . The revolutionary struggle is a political struggle between the classes. It is a just struggle. We strive to build a world where wars will be banished. But it will be a long struggle and we are preparing World War III through our own war, through slaughtering and destruction. We cannot limit warfare to the destruction of buildings. We believe slaughtering of human bodies is inevitable. We know it will become more severe than battles between nations. . . . This incident had been reported worldwide, but it seems to me nobody has grasped the motivation for it. But when a similar operation takes place the next time, what will the world think? When I was captured, certain Japanese asked me, “Was there no other way?” Can that man propose an alternative method? I believe that, as a means toward world revolution, I must prepare the creation of the world Red Army . . . a means of propelling ourselves onto the world stage. . . . The Arab world lacks spiritual fervor, so we felt that through this attempt we could stir up the Arab world. The present world order has given Israel power which has been denied the Arab refugees. This is the link between the Japanese Red Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, with whom we collaborate. . . . I want you to know that the next target may be New York or San Francisco. I would like to warn the entire world that we will slay anyone who stands on the side of the bourgeoisie. This I do not say as a joke. We three soldiers, after we die, want to be three stars of Orion. When we were young, we were told that if we died we may become stars in the sky. I may not have fully believed it, but I was ready to. I believe some of those we slaughtered have become stars in the sky. The revolution will go on, and there will be many more stars. But if we recognize that we go to the same heaven, we can have peace.

  Lt. Col. Abraham Frisch, the presiding judge, sentenced Okamoto to life imprisonment.

  In interviews since his incarceration, it was learned that Okamoto and his colleagues tore their passports in a lavatory of Lod Airport so that they could not escape, a further expression of their determination to go through with the act. They had also planned to explode their last grenades in their faces to make the job of identifying them much harder. At the last moment, Okamoto apparently decided to attack the SAS plane as well but missed with his last grenades and was captured.

  His release was demanded by terrorists in a number of subsequent incidents, including the September 5, 1972, Olympics massacre; a July 20, 1973, JAL hijacking; and the Entebbe affair of July 27, 1976.

  Okamoto suffered a mental breakdown in prison. He was part of a swap in May 1985 with Ahmad Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC) in which more than 1,000 Palestinians plus Okamoto were freed in exchange for three Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon in 1982.

  On February 15, 1997, Lebanon arrested six members of the JRA in the Bekaa Valley and West Beirut. (Later reports said eight people, five of them JRA members, were arrested.) They were identified as Kazuo Tohira, 44; Hisashi Matsuda, 48; Mariko Yamamoto, 56, alias Maria; Masao Adachi, 57, alias The Editor, because of his work in pornographic films; Haruo Wako; and Okamoto, 49. Also arrested was acupuncturist Omaya Abboud, 35. Japan said it would send a team to identify the captives and seek their extradition if appropriate. In March 1997, Lebanese state prosecutor Adnan Addoum announced that Lebanon would not extradite the suspects as Japan had requested but would instead try them for forgery and entering the country illegally. The two countries lack an extradition treaty. Japan had recently been involved in the apprehensions of JRA members in Nepal, Peru, and Romania.

  National Public Radio reported that other JRA detainees were wanted for bank robbery, hijacking, and a shoot-out.

  Okamoto, Yamamoto, and Tohira had frequented a quiet acupuncture clinic in Taanayel. Adachi was often seen being chauffeured in a silver Mercedes. He claimed to be a Malaysian engineer with Solidere, the company rebuilding Beirut’s central business district. Yamamoto lived in a two-bedroom apartment in West Beirut’s New Street.

  On April 3, 1997, a Beirut investigative judge indicted Tohira, Wako, Yamamoto, Adachi, and Okamoto for passport forgery, illegal entry into Lebanon, and official stamps forgery, which carried 10-year prison sentences. A three-judge panel needed to approve the indictment before the suspects could appear in court. The trial opened on June 9, 1997; 136 lawyers offered to take their cases pro bono. Acupu
ncturist Umayya Abboud went on trial simultaneously on charges of illegally practicing medicine. On July 31, 1997, a Lebanese court sentenced five JRA terrorists to three years in jail. The sentences came a day after the United States ended a decadelong ban on Americans visiting Lebanon after Beirut pledged to do more to combat terrorism. On March 1, 2000, Lebanon refused Japan’s request for Okamoto’s extradition. He was granted asylum on health grounds.

  September 5, 1972

  Munich Olympics Attack

  Overview: Before 9/11, arguably the most well-known terrorist attack was the Black September Organization’s (BSO’s) storming of the Olympic Village in 1972 and taking the Israeli team hostage. The group’s name came from the Jordanian government’s crackdown on Palestinian extremists in September 1970, following the Dawson’s Field multiple hijackings. By attacking an event covered by thousands of journalists and watched worldwide by hundreds of millions of people, the Black September operation dominated world headlines. In the United States, the term “Palestinian” soon became synonymous with “terrorist,” all evidence to the contrary. The Black September attack further cemented the effectiveness of barricade-and-hostage operations in the eyes of fellow terrorist groups and presented governments with a wrenching policy decision as to whether to bargain with terrorist hostage-takers. In what later became the stuff of movies and novels, Mossad conducted a years-long assassination campaign against terrorists involved in the attack.

  Incident: On September 5, 1972, eight members of the BSO broke into the Israeli quarter at the Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, killing two Israeli athletes and taking nine others hostage. They demanded the release of 236 guerillas in Israeli jails, including Japanese Red Army ( JRA) terrorist Kozo Okamoto, the release of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in West Germany, and safe passage to a foreign country. After a shoot-out with police, the hostages were killed, as were five of the terrorists and a West German policeman. The three surviving terrorists, two of whom were wounded, were released after the hijacking of a Lufthansa jet on October 29, 1972.

  The group cut through the village’s fence and made its way to the dormitory housing the Hong Kong, Uruguayan, and Israeli teams. At 5:30 A.M., the group burst into the Israelis’ quarters. Six of the team reached safety. The nine Israelis who were trapped fought their attackers with knives but were soon overcome. Their hands were tied behind their backs, and they were forced to hobble to a central location. Soon after, the terrorists threw a note out of a window with their demands—the release of 236 prisoners within 4 hours and safe passage out of Germany. They threatened to kill two of their hostages every half hour after the 9:00 A.M. deadline. The Germans offered an amount of money to be specified by the terrorists, and German interior minister Hans Dietrich Genscher offered himself and his colleagues as substitute hostages. These suggestions were turned down. The initial negotiations were established between a police officer, Amalise Graes, and the terrorists’ leader, Mohammed Masalhah, alias Esa, who trained a machine gun on Graes and kept a hand grenade ready. He told her that his father was Jewish, his mother Jordanian, and his brothers were in Israeli jails.

  The police were unsuccessful in plans to trick the terrorists. Manfred Schreiber, the Munich police chief, and Ahmed Touni, the head of the Egyptian Olympics team, repeated their monetary offers to the terrorists, who replied, “Money means nothing to us; our lives mean nothing to us.” The terrorists again extended their deadline but threatened to shoot two hostages in front of the building. At 12:30 P.M., a third deadline was postponed when Genscher and Bruno Merck, the interior minister of Bavaria, told the terrorists that they were still talking to the Israeli government. The deadline was then extended to 2:30 p.m., and Tunisian ambassador Mahmoud Mestiri later got an extension to 5:00 P.M. At 4:30 P.M., while the police squad assembled to storm the building, the terrorists demanded to be flown to Cairo, Egypt, with their hostages. They also called for a swap of hostages for the prisoners in Israel when the plane touched down.

  The West Germans traced calls made by the terrorists to Beirut and Tunisia. The Beirut number belonged to a Palestinian refugee organization. Mestiri said that the Tunis number belonged to an unnamed “honorable personage.” The calls were unanswered. After these calls, at around 3:30 P.M., Mestiri got the deadline extended.

  Chancellor Willy Brandt had phoned the Israeli government, who urged that the demands of the terrorists not be granted, although the Israelis were willing to give the group safe passage if their athletes were released. Brandt also attempted to reach Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, but could only get Prime Minister Aziz Sidki, to whom he suggested that the terrorists be allowed to fly to Cairo. Sidki claimed that this was not Egypt’s affair and that he could do nothing about it. Egypt later claimed that Brandt misunderstood Sidki, who meant Egypt was powerless to influence the terrorists, as were the West Germans. One last deadline delay was achieved between 6:30 P.M. and 9:00 P.M. During this time, the Libyan ambassador in Munich offered to mediate, but was turned down. He had suggested that he attempt to reduce the demands from the release of 236 to 13 imprisoned guerrillas. At 9:00 P.M., the terrorists agreed to leave the building with their hostages. At 10:10 P.M., using underground corridors, the terrorists boarded a bus with their hostages and were taken to their helicopters, which flew them to Fürstenfeldbruck Military Airport, instead of Riem, Munich’s main civil airport. A Lufthansa B-707 was waiting when the helicopters landed at 10:35 P.M. Although Esa had agreed not to hold the four pilots hostage, the Black Septembrists now kept their guns trained on them. Two of the terrorists traversed the 165 yards from their helicopter to the plane. Police had initially been on board the plane disguised as the plane’s crew, but this plan was vetoed at the last minute. The two terrorists walked back to the helicopter suspecting a trick by the authorities and were fired upon by five police snipers. Two terrorists standing beside the helicopters and one of the men walking across the tarmac were immediately killed. However, Esa dove for cover. The other terrorists fired on the hostages and control tower, killing a policeman and damaging the tower’s radio. At 10:50 P.M., the police called upon the terrorists in English, German, and Arabic to surrender but were fired on. The terrorists were armed with automatic machine guns; the Germans had only single-shot rifles. At 12:04 A.M., a terrorist jumped from a helicopter and threw a grenade into its cabin. Another terrorist emerged from where he had been hiding. Both were immediately shot by the police snipers, but the grenade had already gone off, killing the nine hostages. Armored cars moved in and captured the surviving trio near the undamaged helicopter. One of the volunteer helicopter pilots was badly wounded in the lung. One of the Israelis died of smoke inhalation.

  Four days later, the dead terrorists were flown to Libya, where they were mourned at Tripoli’s main mosque. Official radio called them martyrs and heroes.

  It was rumored that Libya’s Col. Mu’ammar Qadhafi paid Black September $5 million for the operation.

  In February 1973, Jordanian police arrested and questioned Palestinian Abu Daoud, who told his Jordanian interrogators that in August 1972 he had traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, to buy arms for Al Fatah, carrying a forged Iraqi passport for Saad ad-Din Wali. Abu Iyad and Fakhri al Umari arrived from Geneva and informed him of the Olympics plan. Daoud was ordered to give Umari his passport because it contained a valid German visa. Daoud claims that he did so after returning from Libya and that he took no other part in the attack. Many observers disagree with this claim and believe that Daoud was a major organizer of the attack.

  Daoud’s testimony should be compared to the account given by reporter David Tinnin of the activities of Ali Hassan Salameh. According to Tinnin, Salameh assigned Umari, chief of Black September assassins, to the case. Umari collected the weapons, possibly from an Arab diplomatic facility in West Germany, hid them in airline flight bags, and checked them in the luggage room of Munich’s train station. When he tried to case the Olympics Village, he was sent away by guards. Mohammed Masalhah, a Libyan arch
itect, was then given the assignment and was later chosen to lead the terrorists. Two other Black September members were told to get Olympic Village jobs. The Syrian embassy vouched for them on their employment questionnaires. The other five terrorists underwent training in a refugee camp near Deraa, Syria, and then left on a circuitous route to Munich. The terrorists were ultimately to take the hostages to Tunis, which accounted for the phone calls. But according to Tinnin, the Tunisian contact apparently panicked and backed out.

  On October 29, 1972, Black September hijacked Lufthansa flight 615 flying from Damascus to Frankfurt and successfully obtained the release of the three remaining terrorists—Abdullah Samir, Abdel Kadir el Dnawy, and Ibrahim Badran—picked them up at Zagreb, Yugoslavia, airport and flew on to Libya, where they disappeared.

  The Israelis retaliated for the attack by raiding refugee camps in Lebanon on February 21, 1973, killing 31. They later shot down a Libyan airliner that had overflown Israeli air space, killing all 107 aboard. Israeli officials blamed Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon for being behind the Olympics attack. The Israelis established assassination squads (Mivtzan Elohim, The Wrath of God), which killed more than a dozen Black September members in the coming year. Salameh died on January 22, 1979, when a car bomb exploded near his entourage in Beirut.