U.S., Israel Still Targets, Says Abu Nidal Unit

The Palestinian guerrilla group headed by the elusive Abu Nidal says it will continue to attack Israeli and American interests with suicide commando raids, following what it termed a course of “martyrdom as a goal and a means.”

A rare communique from the group, the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, was handed to journalists in the Syrian capital by an official of the organization. Abu Nidal is the nom de guerre of the group’s leader, Sabri Banna, whose whereabouts are not known.

Although U.S. officials have said the group’s headquarters are in Libya, the Abu Nidal organization maintains offices in the Syrian capital and, according to the official here, also has bases in Lebanon.

A Pleasant Apartment

Situated in a quiet residential neighborhood, the Damascus office is in a pleasant ground-floor apartment decorated with loud wallpaper and the group’s coat of arms: crossed assault rifles over a hand grenade and the Arabic word asifa, or storm.

The communique purported to be from the group’s Central Committee following a meeting last month in Lebanon. It was issued to coincide with the founding of the first Palestinian guerrilla group, Fatah, in January, 1956.

The statement made no mention of the recent terrorist attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna, which left 19 people dead, including five Americans and four of the seven terrorists.

The official, who asked that he not be identified, said that he is unable to confirm claims made in the name of the Abu Nidal organization that it is responsible for the raids.

“It’s an honor we can’t claim,” the official said. But he added that only the “armed struggle” would help the Palestinian cause.

When asked about the deaths of civilians in the Rome and Vienna attacks, he said “it’s very difficult to have a target itself. Sometimes the wrong thing happens.” He did not elaborate.

Israel has accused the Abu Nidal group of being responsible for carrying out 33 commando raids in the past year, in which 90 people were killed and 350 were injured.

While not acknowledging any particular attacks, the group’s communique said its Central Committee attached the “highest priority” to studying the “most successful ways to escalate the armed struggle and deepen the exercise of revolutionary violence.”

Not Easily Translated

Much of the six-page document, written in Arabic, is cast in revolutionary rhetoric that is not easily translated.

Talking of the armed struggle, it says that the Central Committee “reconfirms that the course our organization will adopt at this stage is martyrdom as a goal and a means in facing Zionism, imperialist forces and reactionary forces connected to them.”

The statement said that the organization adopted a number of measures to confront Israel and its allies and added that the United States is “in the forefront” among those allies.

“Our committee is also confirming that supporting what is written above will not happen in any way other than following the sacrifice guerrilla system, to underline the course of martyrdom as a goal and a means.”

Threat of Punishment

While giving no details, it said the group will closely monitor “suspects, deviators and agents” and will “punish them justly to prevent them from carrying out the plans of their masters.”

The statement was particularly critical of the leadership of Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Arafat’s own guerrilla faction is Fatah, a name that the Abu Nidal organization also also took as part of its name after it broke with the mainstream Fatah and the PLO in the 1970s. Many of the group’s members are said to be former members of Arafat’s Fatah.

The communique said Arafat’s leadership has “given us a series of surrenders on the road of deviation and treason.”

The communique also praised Syria and Libya but called for the overthrow of Jordan’s King Hussein, a demand that will probably not sit well with the Syrians, who have recently improved their relations with Hussein’s government.