Abu Ali Iyad
Encyclopedia
Walid Ahmad Nimer Al-Naser (1934 – July 23, 1971) better known by his nom de guerre
Abu Ali Iyad was a senior Palestinian
field commander based in Syria
and Jordan
during the 1960s and early 1970s.
After a career of teaching in the West Bank
, Iraq
, Saudi Arabia
and Algeria
, he was recruited into the paramilitary group, Fatah
, by Khalil al-Wazir in 1964 after graduating from an Algerian military training course. A year later, he became one of Fatah's first leaders in Syria along with al-Wazir and Yasser Arafat
. During his time there, he gained a position on the organization's top political body
, supervised a major Fatah guerrilla training camp and set up a military intelligence headquarters.
As Fatah field commander, he took part in the Battle of Karameh
with Israel
, gaining a reputation as an unyielding commander. Abu Ali Iyad was also a leading organizer and participant in guerrilla
raids into Israeli localities. He was one of the last remaining Palestinian commanders fighting the Jordanian Army in the follow-up battles after the Black September conflict
in Jordan. He was killed in the countryside around Ajlun and Jerash
by Jordanian forces in July 1971. His partisans claimed he was executed and as retaliation, they assassinated Jordanian prime minister Wasfi al-Tal
four months after Abu Ali Iyad's death.
in the modern-day West Bank
when Palestine
was under the British Mandate. He was educated there, graduating from high school in 1953 and taught at schools in the city and nearby Azzun
. A year later, he moved to Baquba, Iraq
where he enrolled in a teacher training program. He left Iraq the same year, moving to Saudi Arabia
to teach there afterward. In 1962, he had a job as a teacher in Algeria
. However, he soon sought and received training by the Algerian Army, graduating from its training course in the summer of 1964.
paramilitary organization Fatah
by the leader of its armed wing Khalil al-Wazir. He adopted his nom de guerre after joining. Fatah at the time was divided politically with the more non-violent leadership based in Kuwait
and those supporting attacks against Israel based in Syria
. Abu Ali Iyad, along with al-Wazir, Yasser Arafat
, and three others in the Syrian camp, formed the organization's "emergency" field command in Damascus
in 1965.
A year later al-Wazir, Arafat, and much of the Fatah military leadership were arrested by Syrian authorities loyal to Hafez al-Assad
(who was Defense Minister at the time) as suspects in the murder of a pro-Assad paramilitary leader, Yusuf Urabi. As a result, Abu Ali Iyad, al-Wazir's wife Intissar al-Wazir
and fellow Fatah commander Ahmad Attrush were put in charge of Fatah's leadership in Syria. They formed a secret committee whose purpose was maintaining the military operations of Fatah's armed wing, al-Assifa
, against Israel
, launching attacks from Lebanon
and Jordan
and thus co-opting al-Assad's efforts to circumvent their activity. Abu Ali Iyad himself was arrested later by the Syrian authorities. He was released along with Arafat and two other Fatah leaders in August. Abu Ali Iyad then met al-Assad in person to sign an agreement on the terms of Fatah's presence and activities in Syria.
Following the release of the rest of Fatah's leadership, the Central Committee of Fatah
—the organization's highest decision-making body, was reformed. Two of Arafat's rivals lost their positions in the new central committee and were replaced by his allies, Abu Ali Iyad and Salah Khalaf
, tilting the balance of power within Fatah towards Syria instead of Kuwait. Abu Ali Iyad's position gave him responsibility for al-Assifa's operations against Israel from Syria and Lebanon. By the end of the year, he had personally led raids against a number of village
s in northeastern Israel, including Kfar Giladi
, Manara, Margaliot
, and Beit Yosef
. In the latter village, his unit was responsible for wounding two civilians and destroying three houses by explosives.
Also after his release, in 1966, Abu Ali Iyad became the chief military instructor of a training camp for Fatah recruits in the city of Hama
in central Syria. He modeled it based on the Algerian training camp he graduated from. Most of his pupils were university students who would soon form Fatah's new guerrilla force. Abu Ali Iyad's course was the only one of its kind run by Fatah itself (often commanders would train in Algeria) and it provided the bulk of commanders for the group's guerrilla units for the next decade. These mostly young recruits became known as "Tiger Cubs." Among their ranks, Abu Ali Iyad gained a reputation for enforcing strict discipline. According to British Middle East
expert, Patrick Seale
, he also had a "fierce appearance" that left his soldiers in "awe"; after a malfunction while he was experimenting with explosives, he lost an eye and damaged one of his legs. In 1968, Abu Ali Iyad set up a Fatah headquarters for military intelligence in Dera'a, southern Syria. Its principle task was to penetrate the Jordanian Army and security agencies.
activity persisted following the collective Arab
defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War
and Israel sought to end guerrilla attacks on its territory by launching an offensive against the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) bases in Jordan. A major confrontation ensued between the Israeli Army
and Fatah which came to be known as the Battle of Karameh
. Abu Ali Iyad was a senior commander during the battle, gaining prominence and respect among the Palestinians for his performance as an unyielding military officer. Although Fatah took heavy losses, Israel eventually withdrew after the Jordanian Army entered the fray on Fatah's side. He continued to organize raids against Israeli army camps and towns in Israel and the West Bank
while he was based in Jordan.
Relations between the PLO and King Hussein of Jordan began to deteriorate after Karameh, climaxing in September 1970 when armed conflict
ensued between Palestinian and Jordanian forces. Prior to Jordanian military action, Abu Ali Iyad lobbied his colleagues in Fatah, who supported the forced ousting of the king, to withdraw from Amman
and return to the countryside closer to the border with Israel. Palestinian factions did not heed his calls and their military bases in Amman were shelled by Jordanian forces. On September 17, an emergency meeting of PLO factions was held with the majority of those attending favoring confrontation with King Hussein's troops. Supporting al-Wazir, who was one of the few delegates to have reservations, Abu Ali Iyad argued against confrontation and warned that expectations of Syrian intervention on the side of the Palestinians was improbable. The Jordanians succeeded in defeating PLO forces in Amman and about 2,000 Palestinian guerrillas under al-Wazir's leadership evacuated the city northward to Ajlun.
Abu Ali Iyad was part of the field command there along with al-Wazir. They headed a force of roughly 2,500 guerrillas in the hilly terrain around Ajlun and Jerash
. Their position was vulnerable due to the ineffectiveness of Palestinian guerrilla warfare against Jordanian armor in open areas versus urban warfare in the cities and Palestinian refugee camps. Most of the PLO leadership, including Arafat and al-Wazir, and hundreds of guerrillas escaped Jordan in April 1971 following pressure from Arab states, confiscation of weapons by the Jordanian Army and the closing of PLO offices in Amman. Abu Ali Iyad refused to do so, however, and he and his Tiger Cubs stayed put in their Ajlun base where they continued to fight the Jordanian Army.
On July 12, King Hussein ordered the evacuation of all guerrilla forces from the strategic mountain in the center of their stronghold in Ajlun. Hussein personally offered to allow Abu Ali Iyad to depart unharmed if he abandoned his fighters. He refused and Hussein ordered his troops to track down and kill him within the framework of routing out remaining PLO forces in northern Jordan. A Jordanian infantry division and armored brigade backed by 10,000 Bedouin
foot soldiers immediately launched an offensive afterward. By July 16, Palestinian positions had been secured by the Jordanian Army. During the Jordanian offensive, 200-250 guerrillas had been killed and 70-100 of Abu Ali's troops fled, crossing the Jordan River to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
who documented the history of Palestinian guerrilla warfare, Abu Ali was "executed" during mop-up operations by the Jordanian Army sometime on July 17–18. Jordanian Bedouin troops tied his corpse to a tank and dragged it through several northern villages that had large Palestinian populations. The PLO claimed he was captured and tortured to death by Jordanian forces prior. Another version of events by Abu Ali's partisans was that the Jordanian prime minister at the time, Wasfi al-Tal
, was personally responsible for his torture.
His partisans sought vengeance for his killing and a splinter group developed within Fatah consisting of men from the Tiger Cubs and other Fatah dissidents. It came to be known as the Black September Organization (BSO) and Abu Ali's men provided its initial membership. On November 28, one of his former Tiger Cubs, Munshir al-Khalifa, assassinated al-Tal in Cairo
. According to Seale, this was the first attack carried out by the BSO.
Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish
dedicated the poem "Returning to Jaffa" to Abu Ali Iyad.
Kunya (Arabic)
A kunya is a teknonym, the name of an adult derived from their child, especially their eldest son, in Arabic names.A kunya is expressed by the use of abū or umm in a genitive construction, i.e "father of" or "mother of" as a honorific in place of or alongside given names in the Arab world and the...
Abu Ali Iyad was a senior Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
field commander based in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
and Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
during the 1960s and early 1970s.
After a career of teaching in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
and Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, he was recruited into the paramilitary group, Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
, by Khalil al-Wazir in 1964 after graduating from an Algerian military training course. A year later, he became one of Fatah's first leaders in Syria along with al-Wazir and Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
. During his time there, he gained a position on the organization's top political body
Central Committee of Fatah
The Fatah Central Committee is the highest decision-making body of the Palestinian organization and political party, Fatah.-History:The first Fatah Central Committee was formed in February 1963, consisting of ten members, including Yasser Arafat, Khalil al-Wazir, Salah Khalaf, and Khaled al-Hassan...
, supervised a major Fatah guerrilla training camp and set up a military intelligence headquarters.
As Fatah field commander, he took part in the Battle of Karameh
Battle of Karameh
The Battle of Karameh was fought on March 21, 1968 in the town of Karameh, Jordan, between the Israel Defense Forces and combined forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Jordanian Army...
with Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, gaining a reputation as an unyielding commander. Abu Ali Iyad was also a leading organizer and participant in guerrilla
Palestinian fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen refers to militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people...
raids into Israeli localities. He was one of the last remaining Palestinian commanders fighting the Jordanian Army in the follow-up battles after the Black September conflict
Black September in Jordan
September 1970 is known as the Black September in Arab history and sometimes is referred to as the "era of regrettable events." It was a month when Hashemite King Hussein of Jordan moved to quash the militancy of Palestinian organizations and restore his monarchy's rule over the country. The...
in Jordan. He was killed in the countryside around Ajlun and Jerash
Jerash
Jerash, the Gerasa of Antiquity, is the capital and largest city of Jerash Governorate , which is situated in the north of Jordan, north of the capital Amman towards Syria...
by Jordanian forces in July 1971. His partisans claimed he was executed and as retaliation, they assassinated Jordanian prime minister Wasfi al-Tal
Wasfi al-Tal
Wasfi al-Tal was Prime Minister of Jordan for three separate terms. He was assassinated by the Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1971....
four months after Abu Ali Iyad's death.
Early life
In 1934, Abu Ali Iyad was born in QalqilyahQalqilyah
-Bibliography: p. -External links:**...
in the modern-day West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
when Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
was under the British Mandate. He was educated there, graduating from high school in 1953 and taught at schools in the city and nearby Azzun
Azzun
Azzoun is a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank, located 24 kilometers south of Tulkarm and is a part of the Qalqilya Governorate. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Azzoun had a population of approximately 8,300 in mid-year 2006...
. A year later, he moved to Baquba, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
where he enrolled in a teacher training program. He left Iraq the same year, moving to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
to teach there afterward. In 1962, he had a job as a teacher in Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
. However, he soon sought and received training by the Algerian Army, graduating from its training course in the summer of 1964.
Fatah command
While in Algeria, Abu Ali Iyad was recruited into the Palestinian nationalistPalestinian nationalism
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people. It has roots in Pan-Arabism and other movements rejecting colonialism and calling for national independence. More recently, Palestinian Nationalism is expressed through the Israeli–Palestinian conflict...
paramilitary organization Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
by the leader of its armed wing Khalil al-Wazir. He adopted his nom de guerre after joining. Fatah at the time was divided politically with the more non-violent leadership based in Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
and those supporting attacks against Israel based in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. Abu Ali Iyad, along with al-Wazir, Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
, and three others in the Syrian camp, formed the organization's "emergency" field command in Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
in 1965.
A year later al-Wazir, Arafat, and much of the Fatah military leadership were arrested by Syrian authorities loyal to Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...
(who was Defense Minister at the time) as suspects in the murder of a pro-Assad paramilitary leader, Yusuf Urabi. As a result, Abu Ali Iyad, al-Wazir's wife Intissar al-Wazir
Intissar al-Wazir
Intissar al-Wazir is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a former PNA minister. Her husband was Khalil al-Wazir, a senior figure of the Palestine Liberation Organization who was assassinated by Israel in 1988. She joined the Fatah organization in 1959, becoming the party’s first...
and fellow Fatah commander Ahmad Attrush were put in charge of Fatah's leadership in Syria. They formed a secret committee whose purpose was maintaining the military operations of Fatah's armed wing, al-Assifa
Al-Assifa
Al-`Asifah was the mainstream armed wing of the Palestinian political party and militant group Fatah.It was established in 1964 to protect the political wing of Fatah from reprisals. Its first attempted raid occurred on March 31, 1964, but was hindered because the fighters were detained by the...
, against Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, launching attacks from Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
and thus co-opting al-Assad's efforts to circumvent their activity. Abu Ali Iyad himself was arrested later by the Syrian authorities. He was released along with Arafat and two other Fatah leaders in August. Abu Ali Iyad then met al-Assad in person to sign an agreement on the terms of Fatah's presence and activities in Syria.
Following the release of the rest of Fatah's leadership, the Central Committee of Fatah
Central Committee of Fatah
The Fatah Central Committee is the highest decision-making body of the Palestinian organization and political party, Fatah.-History:The first Fatah Central Committee was formed in February 1963, consisting of ten members, including Yasser Arafat, Khalil al-Wazir, Salah Khalaf, and Khaled al-Hassan...
—the organization's highest decision-making body, was reformed. Two of Arafat's rivals lost their positions in the new central committee and were replaced by his allies, Abu Ali Iyad and Salah Khalaf
Salah Khalaf
Salah Mesbah Khalaf , also known as Abu Iyad was deputy chief and head of intelligence for the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the second most senior official of Fatah after Yasser Arafat....
, tilting the balance of power within Fatah towards Syria instead of Kuwait. Abu Ali Iyad's position gave him responsibility for al-Assifa's operations against Israel from Syria and Lebanon. By the end of the year, he had personally led raids against a number of village
Moshav
Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...
s in northeastern Israel, including Kfar Giladi
Kfar Giladi
-External links:* * Jewish Agency for Israel*...
, Manara, Margaliot
Margaliot
Margaliot is a moshav in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, located along the border with Lebanon, near the town of Kiryat Shmona. It is part of the Mevo'ot HaHermon Regional Council...
, and Beit Yosef
Beit Yosef, Israel
Beit Yosef is a moshav in the northern Israel's Beit She'an Valley. It belongs to the Valley of Springs Regional Council, and is located about 8 km north of Beit She'an, adjacent to Yardena.- History :...
. In the latter village, his unit was responsible for wounding two civilians and destroying three houses by explosives.
Also after his release, in 1966, Abu Ali Iyad became the chief military instructor of a training camp for Fatah recruits in the city of Hama
Hama
Hama is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria north of Damascus. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. Hama is the fourth-largest city in Syria—behind Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs—with a population of 696,863...
in central Syria. He modeled it based on the Algerian training camp he graduated from. Most of his pupils were university students who would soon form Fatah's new guerrilla force. Abu Ali Iyad's course was the only one of its kind run by Fatah itself (often commanders would train in Algeria) and it provided the bulk of commanders for the group's guerrilla units for the next decade. These mostly young recruits became known as "Tiger Cubs." Among their ranks, Abu Ali Iyad gained a reputation for enforcing strict discipline. According to British Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
expert, Patrick Seale
Patrick Seale
Patrick Abram Seale is a British journalist and author who specialises in the Middle East, as well as a literary agent and art dealer. He is a former correspondent for The Observer and has interviewed many of the Middle East's most prominent leaders and personalities.Seale is the author of a number...
, he also had a "fierce appearance" that left his soldiers in "awe"; after a malfunction while he was experimenting with explosives, he lost an eye and damaged one of his legs. In 1968, Abu Ali Iyad set up a Fatah headquarters for military intelligence in Dera'a, southern Syria. Its principle task was to penetrate the Jordanian Army and security agencies.
Commander in Jordan
He moved to Jordan in 1968 where he trained Fatah forces in Ajlun. Palestinian fedayeenPalestinian fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen refers to militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people...
activity persisted following the collective Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
and Israel sought to end guerrilla attacks on its territory by launching an offensive against the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) bases in Jordan. A major confrontation ensued between the Israeli Army
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
and Fatah which came to be known as the Battle of Karameh
Battle of Karameh
The Battle of Karameh was fought on March 21, 1968 in the town of Karameh, Jordan, between the Israel Defense Forces and combined forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Jordanian Army...
. Abu Ali Iyad was a senior commander during the battle, gaining prominence and respect among the Palestinians for his performance as an unyielding military officer. Although Fatah took heavy losses, Israel eventually withdrew after the Jordanian Army entered the fray on Fatah's side. He continued to organize raids against Israeli army camps and towns in Israel and the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
while he was based in Jordan.
Relations between the PLO and King Hussein of Jordan began to deteriorate after Karameh, climaxing in September 1970 when armed conflict
Black September in Jordan
September 1970 is known as the Black September in Arab history and sometimes is referred to as the "era of regrettable events." It was a month when Hashemite King Hussein of Jordan moved to quash the militancy of Palestinian organizations and restore his monarchy's rule over the country. The...
ensued between Palestinian and Jordanian forces. Prior to Jordanian military action, Abu Ali Iyad lobbied his colleagues in Fatah, who supported the forced ousting of the king, to withdraw from Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
and return to the countryside closer to the border with Israel. Palestinian factions did not heed his calls and their military bases in Amman were shelled by Jordanian forces. On September 17, an emergency meeting of PLO factions was held with the majority of those attending favoring confrontation with King Hussein's troops. Supporting al-Wazir, who was one of the few delegates to have reservations, Abu Ali Iyad argued against confrontation and warned that expectations of Syrian intervention on the side of the Palestinians was improbable. The Jordanians succeeded in defeating PLO forces in Amman and about 2,000 Palestinian guerrillas under al-Wazir's leadership evacuated the city northward to Ajlun.
Abu Ali Iyad was part of the field command there along with al-Wazir. They headed a force of roughly 2,500 guerrillas in the hilly terrain around Ajlun and Jerash
Jerash
Jerash, the Gerasa of Antiquity, is the capital and largest city of Jerash Governorate , which is situated in the north of Jordan, north of the capital Amman towards Syria...
. Their position was vulnerable due to the ineffectiveness of Palestinian guerrilla warfare against Jordanian armor in open areas versus urban warfare in the cities and Palestinian refugee camps. Most of the PLO leadership, including Arafat and al-Wazir, and hundreds of guerrillas escaped Jordan in April 1971 following pressure from Arab states, confiscation of weapons by the Jordanian Army and the closing of PLO offices in Amman. Abu Ali Iyad refused to do so, however, and he and his Tiger Cubs stayed put in their Ajlun base where they continued to fight the Jordanian Army.
On July 12, King Hussein ordered the evacuation of all guerrilla forces from the strategic mountain in the center of their stronghold in Ajlun. Hussein personally offered to allow Abu Ali Iyad to depart unharmed if he abandoned his fighters. He refused and Hussein ordered his troops to track down and kill him within the framework of routing out remaining PLO forces in northern Jordan. A Jordanian infantry division and armored brigade backed by 10,000 Bedouin
Bedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
foot soldiers immediately launched an offensive afterward. By July 16, Palestinian positions had been secured by the Jordanian Army. During the Jordanian offensive, 200-250 guerrillas had been killed and 70-100 of Abu Ali's troops fled, crossing the Jordan River to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Death and aftermath
In early July, prior to the offensive, Abu Ali sent letters to Fatah leaders chastising them for surrendering to King Hussein's forces, stating in defiance "We will die on our feet rather than kneel." On July 23, he was reported killed by the Jordanian Army. According to Yezid SayighYezid Sayigh
Yezid Sayigh, Baltimore, Maryland. Sayigh is Professor of Middle East Studies in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, member of the Academic Board of the Gulf Research Center and member of the Board of Trustees of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research...
who documented the history of Palestinian guerrilla warfare, Abu Ali was "executed" during mop-up operations by the Jordanian Army sometime on July 17–18. Jordanian Bedouin troops tied his corpse to a tank and dragged it through several northern villages that had large Palestinian populations. The PLO claimed he was captured and tortured to death by Jordanian forces prior. Another version of events by Abu Ali's partisans was that the Jordanian prime minister at the time, Wasfi al-Tal
Wasfi al-Tal
Wasfi al-Tal was Prime Minister of Jordan for three separate terms. He was assassinated by the Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1971....
, was personally responsible for his torture.
His partisans sought vengeance for his killing and a splinter group developed within Fatah consisting of men from the Tiger Cubs and other Fatah dissidents. It came to be known as the Black September Organization (BSO) and Abu Ali's men provided its initial membership. On November 28, one of his former Tiger Cubs, Munshir al-Khalifa, assassinated al-Tal in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. According to Seale, this was the first attack carried out by the BSO.
Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet...
dedicated the poem "Returning to Jaffa" to Abu Ali Iyad.