Abu Nidal killed by Iraqi assassins, insist supporters

Followers of Abu Nidal have rejected a claim by Iraq that the Palestinian guerrilla leader killed himself when Iraqi security men went to his Baghdad apartment to arrest him and put him on trial for entering Iraq illegally.

"Abu Nidal, an unyielding believer who entered battle on several fronts, could not have attempted suicide for the reasons given," the Fatah Revolutionary Council said yesterday. "We consider this an assassination, conceived of in advance and carried out by an intelligence apparatus."

The Iraqis exhibited photographs of Abu Nidal's bloodied corpse to back up their version of events.

Blood you would associate with Abu Nidal. But suicide? In Baghdad? With the Iraqi goons politely waiting while the Palestinian killer went to change his clothes? And a court? Iraqi agents were taking Abu Nidal to court? Dead the frightful man certainly is. But that is the only thing certain about a Palestinian whose killers slaughtered Jews and Palestinians in about equal measure: 275 in all.

Even the explanation of Tahir Haboush, head of Iraqi intelligence – that he had entered Iraq illegally on a forged Yemeni passport in 1999 – raised as many questions as it answered. That anyone – let alone Abu Nidal, who once worked for Iraqi intelligence – could slip into Baghdad without being noticed is beyond credibility, let alone that he could remain hidden.

The White House was quick to seize the opportunity: Abu Nidal, it announced, had been given "safe haven" in Iraq, which proved Iraq's links to "global terror". The US has been looking for those links for some time, ever since its claim that an Iraqi agent met one of the 11 September suicide pilots in Prague fell to pieces.

But is it not a bit too neat? Just when America needs a connection, Abu Nidal turns up dead in Baghdad with pictures to prove it: shot in the head, in a hospital bed with blood soaking the pillow, even a copy of the Yemeni passport. Mr Haboush also said his men had found AK-47 assault rifles, pistols, false identity cards and bags of explosives in the house.

Iraq had been told that Abu Nidal entered Iraq from Iran in 1999 by an Arab state, which Mr Haboush declined to identify. There were rumours, too, that Abu Nidal had been in touch with Saudi and Kuwaiti intelligence officials and that there were plans in his house for an American invasion of Iraq. He had been in contact with a foreign power, Mr Haboush said, refusing to name the country.

Iraq put Abu Nidal on its blacklist in 1983 after his group attacked the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, both supporters of Iraq's war with Iran. Tariq Aziz, who was the Foreign Minister, personally expelled him from Baghdad. A Palestinian present then later told the writer Patrick Seale that Mr Aziz told Abu Nidal: "President Saddam has come to the conclusion that you have become a dangerous burden ... you are to leave Iraq the moment you step out of this door."

For years afterwards, Abu Nidal attacked Tariq Aziz in his Fatah Revolutionary Council newspapers, claiming he was in league with the Pope to destroy the Arabs. He even claimed that Iraq owed him $50m for the properties he lost in the country, although 29 corpses were allegedly found beneath one of them: members of his group killed for "treachery".

So is it just possible that part of Mr Haboush's story is true? That perhaps Abu Nidal was sent to Iraq by an outside power? If so, you can understand why he might have killed himself. Who, faced with the Iraqi secret service in a bad mood, would want to live?