[Scholarcs]

Abu Abbas in US custody in Iraq

Palestinian guerrilla leader Mohammad Zaidan or Abu Abbas, who masterminded the hijacking of an Italian cruise ship in 1985, was captured by US special forces and is in US custody in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Abu Abbas, also known as Mohammad Abbas, is the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), which hijacked the Achille Lauro in the Eastern Mediterranean, resulting in the death of a disabled elderly American Jewish tourist, Leon Klinghoffer.

Abbas had spent most of the past 17 years in Iraq, beyond the reach of US and Italian officials. He had been sentenced in Italy to five life terms in prison and is wanted in the United States in connection with the cruise ship hijacking.

“My understanding is he was captured during a raid on a house in the outskirts of Baghdad late last night,” said a US official. “It was conducted by special forces.”

Born in 1948, Abu Abbas headed the PLF, which broke away in April 1977 from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). The PLF had been active in Lebanon along the country’s northern border with Israel and staged attacks against civilian and military tagets.

It split from Ahmad Jibril’s PFLP-GC over a confrontation between Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Jibril’s support of the Syrian intervention in Lebanon. The new organisation was headed by Tal’at Ya’akub and Abu Abbas.

The PLF later split into three factions, who supported either the PLO, Syria or Libya. Abu Abbas led the pro-PLO faction. He joined Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Tunisia when the PLO leader was forced to leave Beirut.

But following the attack on the Achille Lauro ship in October 1985, Tunisian authorities expelled Abu Abbas and he found his way to Baghdad, where he established his headquarters. The PLF's membership was about 400.

Following the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Abu Abbas’ faction accepted the PLO’s political decision to abandon armed resistance.