U.S. Knew About Arafat's Key Role In Diplomats' Murders,Patrick Goodenough

The U.S. government was aware from the outset of Yasir Arafat's hand in the 1973 murder of two American diplomats in Sudan, according to a formerly secret document released Monday by the State Department.

"The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasir Arafat," said an official U.S. intelligence memorandum dated June 1973.

It added that representatives of Fatah, Arafat's faction of the PLO, "participated in the attack, using a Fatah vehicle to transport the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian Embassy."

The Saudi Embassy in Khartoum was where Palestinian terrorists murdered U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel and U.S. charge d'affaires George Curtis Moore, along with a Belgian diplomat, Guy Eid, on March 2, 1973.

The eight terrorists had seized the diplomats during an embassy function, demanding the release of jailed Palestinian terrorists, including Fatah's Abu Daoud, who planned the attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics the previous year and was in prison in Jordan; and Sirhan Sirhan, Senator Robert Kennedy's assassin, imprisoned in California.

Officially, the U.S. has always blamed the attack on the Black September organization (BSO), a Palestinian faction.

But the document released this week confirms suspicions voiced and published down the years that Arafat was not only involved, but known at the time to be involved.

The June 1973 intelligence memorandum said the terrorists killed the diplomats "after they reportedly had received orders from Fatah headquarters in Beirut."

"Thirty-four hours later, upon receipt of orders from Yasir Arafat in Beirut to surrender, the terrorists released their other hostages unharmed and surrendered to Sudanese authorities," it said.

"The open participation of Fatah representatives in Khartoum in the attack provides further evidence of the Fatah/BSO relationship."

The document also shows that the U.S. government believed a key aim of the Khartoum siege was not to win freedom for jailed Palestinian terrorists but to punish the U.S.

"Initially, the main objective of the attack appeared to be to secure the release of Fatah/BSO leader Muhammed Awadh (Abu Daoud) from Jordanian captivity," it said.

"Information acquired subsequently reveals that the Fatah/BSO leaders did not expect Awadh to be freed, and indicates that one of the primary goals of the operation was to strike at the United States because of its efforts to achieve a Middle East peace settlement which many Arabs believe would be inimical to Palestinian interests." Radioed instructions

The State Department has evidently been reluctant to publicly link Arafat or Fatah to the Khartoum attack.

According to the department's list of significant terrorist incidents, Cleo and Moore were killed by "members of the Black September organization."

In their 1990 book Inside the PLO, researchers Neil Livingstone and David Halevy wrote that the order to kill the diplomats came first from Arafat's commander Abu Iyad, who by radio from PLO headquarters in Beirut told the hostage-takers: "Remember Nahr al-Bard. The people's blood in he Nahr al-Bard cries out for vengeance. We and the rest of the world are watching you."

Nahr al-Bard (Cold River) was a reference to a terrorist training facility in Lebanon attacked earlier by Israel, and a code phrase ordering the gunmen to execute their hostages.

A few minutes after the shooting, PLO headquarters radioed again, they wrote. This time it was Arafat himself, who asked whether the Nahr al-Bard code word had been understood. He was assured the instruction had already been carried out.

Livingstone and Halevy said the radio messages were intercepted by the Israelis and transcripts handed to the State Department.

The terrorists surrendered to the Sudanese, who released two of them for "lack of evidence."

After the other six were interrogated, Sudanese vice president Mohammed Bakir said of the terrorists: "They relied on radio messages from Beirut Fatah headquarters, both for the order to kill the three diplomats and for their own surrender Sunday morning."

The six later went on trial, during which the commander, Salim Rizak, told the Sudanese court: "We carried out this operation on the orders of the Palestine Liberation Organization and should only be questioned by that organization."

In June 1973, they were found guilty of murdering the three diplomats and sentenced to life imprisonment. Hours later the Sudanese government commuted their sentences to seven years and flew them out of the country, handing them over to the PLO.

The Nixon administration downgraded relations and withdrew its new ambassador to Khartoum - Cleo's successor - in protest.

After Nixon resigned, the Ford administration began a step-by-step process of normalization relations with Khartoum.

Patrick Goodenough is international editor of CNSnews.com.

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