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Turning oil into blood Western intelligence, Libyan covert actions, and Palestinian terrorism (1973-74) Guttmann, Aviva

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DOI: 10.1080/01402390.2020.1868995

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Turning oil into blood: Western intelligence, Libyan covert actions, and Palestinian terrorism (1973-74)

Aviva Guttmann

To cite this article: Aviva Guttmann (2021): Turning oil into blood: Western intelligence, Libyan covert actions, and Palestinian terrorism (1973-74), Journal of Strategic Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01402390.2020.1868995 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2020.1868995

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fjss20 JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2020.1868995

ARTICLE Turning oil into blood: Western intelligence, Libyan covert actions, and Palestinian terrorism (1973-74) Aviva Guttmann

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Senior Research Fellow Center for War Studies, Southern Denmark University, Odense, Denmark

ABSTRACT How can multilateral liaison be used as a tool to counter state-sponsored terrorism? This article analyses cooperation among 18 Western European intel­ ligence agencies to counter Libyan-Palestinian terrorism in Europe in the early 1970s. Two arguments are presented. Concerning Western perceptions of Palestinian-Libyan operations, the article argues that the intelligence reports overestimated Libyan influence over Palestinian actions. Concerning intelli­ gence cooperation, the article argues that intelligence was shared to collec­ tively understand the threat posed by Libya but also to send implicit political messages. The article is based on unprecedented access to records from a multilateral liaison called the Club de Berne.

KEYWORDS Intelligence; covert action; security cooperation; intelligence-sharing; Club de Berne; threat perception; state-supported terrorism; counterterrorism; Muamar al-Qaddafi; Europe, Middle East

17 December 1973 was a bloody day at Rome Fiumicino airport. After ten armed terrorists shot indiscriminately at people in the waiting hall, a Pan American plane was attacked and caught fire1. Exits were blocked, and 27 passengers were killed in the flames. The perpetrators hijacked another plane and escaped. After this attack, security agencies from 18 countries shared intelligence to find out more about who might have been behind this attack. Gradually, it crystallised that this was a Libyan-Palestinian terrorist attack. State-supported Palestinian terrorism or a form of Libyan covert operation seemed to have happened – a dangerous and worrying development in the eyes of the intelligence agencies. This article focuses on these intelligence exchanges and the agencies’ perceptions of this Libyan-Palestinian secret warfare. It specifically examines the early 1970s: a time between Muammar al-Qaddafi’s ascent to power and his increasingly bold leadership aspirations in the Arab world. A time of

CONTACT Aviva Guttmann [email protected] Marie Sklodowska-Curie Senior Research Fellow, Center for War Studies, Southern Denmark University, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark 1This article leaves the term ‘terrorism’ in its original context and uses the term in accordance with what the intelligence officers at the time meant by it. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. 2 A. GUTTMANN intense divisions within the Palestinian movement. A time also when Western European and Euro-Israeli intelligence-sharing mechanisms emerged to counter Palestinian terrorism. In 1971, Western European intelligence agen­ cies established a secret communication system to share intelligence about Palestinian armed groups. Because Qaddafi was believed to have used radi­ calised Palestinian refugees for his operations, Western intelligence became increasingly concerned with Libyan involvement in the Palestinian armed struggle. The framework for this secret communication channel was a liaison called the Club de Berne. The Club de Berne was a multilateral liaison of intelligence agencies from nine Western European countries and nine extra-European partners (includ­ ing Mossad, Shin Bet, and the FBI).2 This liaison was created in 1969 and still today hosts an important informal counterterrorism intelligence-sharing fra­ mework among Western intelligence agencies.3 The goal of the Club de Berne was to ensure an effective exchange of information and knowledge about terrorism and espionage. In June 1971, a system to alert against Palestinian terrorist attacks was introduced, which became operational in October 1971. All nine Western European Club de Berne members and nine partner agencies participated in the encrypted telex system.4 To this day, the Club de Berne remains an extremely secretive liaison and very little is known about its operations.5 It is very rare for researchers to obtain access to the sources of a multilateral intelligence liaison, especially where one can see exactly what was shared by which agency. This article thus provides unique insights into Western security cooperation. The sources were accessed in the Swiss Federal Archives in Bern. Through a special request to consult the Club de Berne files I obtained full unredacted access to all cables that were sent under the Club de Berne alerting system from October 1971 onwards.6 The source material for this article includes the daily

2For an account about the creation of the Club de Berne and its cooperation mechanisms in the 1970s see my monograph, Aviva Guttmann, The Origins of International Counterterrorism. Switzerland at the Forefront of Crisis Negotiations, Multilateral Diplomacy, and Intelligence Cooperation (1969–1977) (Leiden: Brill 2018), part III is about the Club der Berne. 3For an account about the Club der Berne’s function today, see Oldrich Bures, ‘Informal counterterrorism arrangements in Europe: Beauty by variety or duplicity by abundance?’ Cooperation and Conflict 47/4 (2012), 495–518, 502; and John D. Occhipinti, ‘Still Moving Toward a European FBI? Re-Examining the Politics of EU Police Cooperation’, Intelligence and National Security 30/2 (2015), 234–58, 241. 4In alphabetical order, the countries that were part of the Club de Berne alerting system were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA, West Germany. The Club de Berne members used the code word Kilowatt for their encrypted messages. 5For a journalistic investigation about the Club de Berne today, and its development into a near- institutionalised multilateral liaison, see Jan Jirát and Lorenz Naegeli, ‘Der geheime Club der geheimen Dienste’, Wochenzeitung, 5 Marc. 2020 and the translation into English, ‘The Club de Berne: a black box of growing intelligence cooperation,’ in about intel, https://aboutintel.eu/the-club-de-berne/. 6The Club de Berne members had agreed to send all messages to the entire group. (Today’s equivalent would be to ‘copy in’ everyone in an email). Therefore it is possible to understand cooperation as a whole by consulting the cables that the Swiss received and sent in the Club de Berne. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 3 correspondence among the Club de Berne liaison before, during, and after two Libyan-Palestinian terrorist attacks in 1973. This correspondence includes threat assessments, warnings, and the results of police investigations after terrorist attacks, as well as intelligence about the members of terrorist groups, their operational methods, and their tactical innovations. In short, it com­ prised what an agency deemed relevant and necessary for another agency to know to enable it to counter a common terrorist threat.7 The year 1973 marks the beginning of the Club de Berne exchanges, as the intelligence agencies had only recently overcome their reluc­ tance to share intelligence among European partners. Especially after the Munich Olympics Massacre in 1972, the security officers realised the need for increased counterterrorism cooperation on the level of intelli­ gence agencies.8 While agencies were cautious about giving out secret intelligence, part of the motivation to share intelligence was the rea­ lisation that one agency alone was not able to piece the puzzle together. This article shows that the agencies’ tracking of Qaddafi’s involvement in the Palestinian armed struggle exemplifies precisely this interagency inter­ dependence. Based on the Club de Berne files, the article demonstrates how various agencies contributed based on the information available to them. This then allowed for an overall interpretation of the Libyan government’s covert operations in Europe. The article’s goal is thus twofold. On the one hand, it analyses how Western intelligence interpreted the threat of Libyan- Palestinian terrorism in the early 1970s, and on the other hand, it illustrates the mechanisms of multilateral intelligence-sharing. Hence, the article has two separate but interlinked arguments and contributes to two bodies of literature. First, with the article’s perspective based on Western European intelli­ gence, it contributes to the historiography of how ‘the West’ perceived and interpreted Middle Eastern security risks.9 The article argues that Western

7Club de Berne messages were sent in English, French, Italian, and German. All translations into English were done by the author. 8For an account in German about the Munich Olympics Massacre and the German authorities’ reaction, see Matthias Dahlke, Demokratischer Staat und transnationaler Terrorismus Drei Wege zur Unnachgiebigkeit in Westeuropa 1972–1975 (Munich: Oldenbourg 2011), 57–128. For the long-term political consequences of the attack, see Eva Oberloskamp, ‘Das Olympia-Attentat 1972. Politische Lernprozesse im Umgang mit dem transnationalen Terrorismus’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 60/ 3 (2012), 321–52; and Kay Schiller and Christopher Young, The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press 2010), 194–207. 9See for instance Dina Rezk’s book that merges diplomatic, cultural, and intellectual history by looking at how Western intelligence analysed Middle Eastern politics, Dina Rezk, The Arab World and Western Intelligence: Analysing the Middle East, 1956–1981 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2018). For other works that apply Edward Said’s display of Western ‘Orientalism’ to political and international history, see also Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism. Eastern War Through Western Eyes (New York: Columbia University Press 2013) and Douglas Little, American Orientalism. The United States and the Middle East Since 1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2008). 4 A. GUTTMANN analysis suffered from a one-sided view of agency. Qaddafi was seen as the string-puller of all actions, while the Palestinians were believed to have been manipulated or used for Libyan foreign political goals. This led the agencies to interpret Qaddafi’s regime as a potential destabilising force in the Middle East, overestimating his influence over Palestinian affairs. In contrast, based on what is known about Libyan foreign policy in the 1970s, the article argues that Qaddafi’smotivations for supporting Palestinian terrorism have been portrayed more accurately. The agencies thought that he was driving forward radical positions in the Arab-Israeli conflict and advocat­ ing against any negotiations, which corresponds to Libya’s foreign policy at the time.10 Particularly in the fragile moments of peace negotiations after the Yom Kippur War, when the above-mentioned Rome airport attack happened, the agencies saw Libya in opposition to Egypt and other Arab countries’ more pragmatic approach towards Israel. Second, the article contributes to the field of international security by showing how intelligence agencies of various countries worked together to face a common threat. The practice of cooperation among intelligence agen­ cies remains an extremely sensitive and opaque area of international relations and governance. On the one hand, the agencies want to preserve their liaison with the other countries, and on the other hand close cooperation also means a degree of dependency on partners, and it can be strategically wise not to mention these links to others.11 Therefore, it is not surprising that there are hardly any works on the history of intelligence cooperation using archival data.12

10For works that look at Qaddafi’s foreign policy and his ideas of pan-Arab nationalism in the 1970s, see the works of John K. Cooley, Libyan Sandstorm (London: Sidgwick and Jackson 1983), Dirk J. Vandewalle, A History of Modern Libya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012); Alison Pargeter, Libya. The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi (New Haven: Yale University Press 2012), particularly chapter 5; Saskia van Genugten, Libya in Western Foreign Policies, 1911–2011 (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2016) particularly chapter 6; and Yehudit Ronen, Qaddafi’s Libya in World Politics (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers 2014). 11For an analysis of how these constraints to secrecy in intelligence cooperation impact accountability of governments, see also Richard James Aldrich, ‘Global intelligence, co-operation versus accountability: new facets to an old problem’, Intelligence and National Security 24/1 (2009), 26–56. 12A few case studies exist dealing with specific bilateral intelligence cooperation during moments of crisis, such as the interesting case of Franco-German cooperation during the Algerian war. Mathilde von Bülow, ‘Franco-German Intelligence Cooperation and the Internationalization of Algeria’s War of Independence (1954–62)’, Intelligence and National Security 28/3 (2013), 397–419. See also, Hugues Canuel, ‘French aspirations and Anglo-Saxon suspicions: France, signals intelligence and the UK-USA agreement at the dawn of the Cold War’, Journal of Intelligence History 12/1 (2013), 76–92. Another interesting case using recently declassified sources is cooperation among some Western countries – the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada – during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. Don Munton and Miriam Matejova, ‘Spies without Borders? Western Intelligence Liaison, the Tehran Hostage Affair and Iran’s Islamic Revolution’, Intelligence and National Security 27/5 (2012), 739–760. Another inter­ esting case study has recently been published about a multilateral signals intelligence liaison called Maximator (named after the beer that its founders were drinking), see Bart Jacobs, ‘Maximator: European Signals Intelligence Cooperation, from a Dutch Perspective’, Intelligence and National Security 35/5 (2020), 659–68. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 5

This article aligns with scholarship in intelligence and security cooperation that sees a shared interest as a necessary prerequisite for cooperation and that considers cooperation as a way for states to collectively enhance power.13 The article, however, goes further and looks at the Club de Berne as a site of strategic interactions by which everyday practitioners created a type of transgovernmental covert network.14 With this approach, the Club de Berne multilateral intelligence-sharing system is seen as more than a simple ‘quid pro quo’ exchange.15 Furthermore, over time, as I have argued elsewhere, these security ties fostered trust-building, shaped common views and threat perceptions, and forged mutual interdependencies that led to a collective commitment to share information.16 In line with these considerations, cooperation in the Club de Berne with regard to Libyan-Palestinian terrorist actions has two particularly interesting aspects. First, to understand the planning of terrorist attacks and to identify possible security loopholes, the agencies primarily shared what can be described as ‘raw intelligence’ – near verbatim quotes from their informants without much filter or analysis. The article argues that on the sheer technical level of understanding terrorist workings, intelligence agencies shared large amounts of detail. This information was sent primarily for the purpose of a force-multiplication to collectively improve the assessment of the threat posed by Qaddafi.

13This strand of the literature on intelligence cooperation employs what Pepijn Tuinier calls ‘a neorealist presumption,’ see Pepijn Tuinie, ‘Explaining the depth and breadth of international intelligence cooperation: towards a comprehensive understanding,’ Intelligence and National Security, published online: 22 September 2020, 7. Works who see intelligence cooperation in this way are for instance James Igoe Walsh, The International Politics of Intelligence Sharing (New York: Columbia University Press 2012); Jennifer E. Sims, ‘Foreign Intelligence Liaison: Devils, Deals, and Details’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 19/2 (2006), 195–217, and H. Bradford Westerfield, ‘America and the world of intelligence liaison’, Intelligence and National Security 11/3 (1996), 523–60. 14For works that approach the study of intelligence cooperation on different levels, particularly the organisational level of intelligence agencies or individuals as drivers for cooperation, see works of Björn Fägersten, ‘Sharing Secrets. Explaining International Intelligence Cooperation’, Dissertation at the Department of Political Science, Lund Univ., 2010; and Didier Bigo, ‘Shared Secrecy in a Digital Age and a Transnational World’, Intelligence and National Security 34/3 (2019), 379–94; and Bures, ‘Informal counterterrorism arrangements in Europe.’ See also Michael Herman’s analysis on intelligence coop­ eration from a practitioners’ view: Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996), see chapter 12 on Intelligence Cooperation, 200–218. 15For works that see intelligence cooperation as state-centred and based mainly on a cost-benefit assessment, see Chris Clough, ‘Quid Pro Quo: The Challenges of International Strategic Intelligence Cooperation’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 17/4 (2004), 601–13; Don Munton and Karima Fredj, ‘Sharing Secrets: A Game Theoretic Analysis of International Intelligence Cooperation’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 26/4 (2013), 666–92; Stéphane Lefebvre, ‘The Difficulties and Dilemmas of International Intelligence Cooperation’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 16/4 (2003), 527–42; and Sir Stephen Lander, ‘International intelli­ gence cooperation: an inside perspective’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17/3 (2004), 481–93. 16For the Club de Berne as a platform for such informal intergovernmental cooperation, creating an institutionalisation process dating back to the early 1970s, see my article, Aviva Guttmann, ‘Combatting Terror in Europe: Euro-Israeli Counterterrorism Intelligence Cooperation in the Club de Berne (1971–1972)’, Intelligence and National Security 33/2 (2018), 158–75. 6 A. GUTTMANN

The practice of sharing ‘raw intelligence’ is rather unexpected in a multilateral intelligence-sharing setting,17 as sharing information that was directly received from an informant bore a greater risk of the informant being identified. Communicating unfinished intelligence products to partner agen­ cies was thus a sign of a high level of trust among the Club de Berne members. Essentially, they were willing to not only share the information as such but also, to a certain degree, disclose how it was acquired (and by doing so, taking the risk of potentially endangering this intelligence collection method). By contrast, secondly, cables tended to also include political messages or information that aimed to present the sender’s government in a better light. These cables were often sent after terrorist attacks had happened and included justifications or exculpations of a government’s handling of the terrorist crisis. The article argues that these informal links, straight from one agency to another, also served a diplomatic purpose. Through the Club de Berne, the agencies were able to share information that would have been too secret to reveal via official channels. In terms of the contributions of specific intelligence agencies, Israel, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Great Britain played leading roles in this instance of countering Libyan-Palestinian terrorism. However, in general the various countries’ contributions to the Club de Berne cooperation were quite even. A country’s activity varied on a case-by-case basis and depended mostly on the availability of information and the degree to which they had been affected by an event (for instance Italy was more active in the Qaddafi case because the attack happened in Rome). The article proceeds chronologically and each part contributes to one of the above-mentioned argumentative lines. The article begins by recounting how the security services tracked the first meetings between Libyan and Palestinian representatives and focuses on what the agencies thought they had found out about preparations for attacks in Europe. These parts explain how the initiative was thought to have solely come from Qaddafi. This will also show that on a technical level, the agencies mostly shared raw intelli­ gence. The article then concentrates on two terrorist attacks that were, according to intelligence reports, perpetrated by a Libyan-Palestinian com­ mando. There are no publications in English about these two terrorist events,18 and until now little has been known about the course of events of the attacks, the perpetrators’ identities, or Libya’s involvement. The next part

17See for instance Westerfield who argues that the higher the risks are that an agency is willing to take, the more this is a sign of a trusting relation. Consequently, ‘raw intelligence’ is believed to be shared only in highly trusted circumstances, Westerfield. ‘America and the world of intelligence liaison,’ 523. 18For an account in Italian of the Rome attack and its political consequences in Italy, see Gabriele Paradisi and Rosario Priore, La Strage Dimenticata: Fiumicino, 17 Dicembre 1973 (Reggio Emilia: Imprimatur 2015). THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 7 examines the cables sent after the attacks, where the justifications and exculpations will be highlighted. The last two parts show how Israeli and European intelligence agencies attributed nearly all responsibility for the attack to the Libyan government. The last part also assesses what the intelli­ gence agencies thought were Libya’s motivations. Altogether, this article analyses how Western intelligence services used the Club de Berne as a counterterrorism tool and how accurate their assessments were.

Reports about meetings between Qaddafi and the Palestinian leadership Qaddafi came to power in 1969 and soon aspired to be the leader of the Arab world. The Yom Kippur War and the oil boom in its aftermath flooded Libya’s economy with petrodollars and thus provided Qaddafi with greater means to achieve his regime’s goals. He aimed to confront the West and revive Libyan and Arab cultural and political power.19 Particularly after Nasser’s death, Qaddafi believed that it was his responsibility to rebuild the historic legacy of the Arab world and that he was Nasser’s heir within the region.20 He portrayed the Libyan revolution as a national liberation struggle against exploitation, imperialism, and colonialism on a global scale. Qaddafi’s regime therefore established the Maktub Tasdir al-Thawra (Office for the Export of the Revolution) and provided substantial support to a variety of rebellions with nationalistic goals.21 Libyan military assistance or covert operations were primarily financed by Libyan oil exports.22 As part of this anti-imperial world struggle, the Club de Berne intelligence agencies suspected that Qaddafi provided substantial military assistance to several violent Palestinian organi­ sations mostly in the form of arms, money, and sanctuary. Intelligence agencies reported the first meetings with Palestinian leader­ ship in February 1973. A ‘reliable but extremely vulnerable source inside the government of Libya’ informed the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) about a first meeting that took place on 24 February 1973 between Qaddafi and a high member of the Palestinian armed struggle, Salah Khalaf – known more commonly under his nom de guerre Abu Iyad.23 Abu Iyad was at the time the second most senior official of the Fatah after Yasser Arafat. The meeting was allegedly arranged through the Libyan ambassador in Beirut,

19Vandewalle, History of Modern Libya, 124. 20Pargeter, The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi, 120. 21Genugten, Libya in Western Foreign Policies, 87. 22Vandewalle, History of Modern Libya, 96. The title of this present article refers to the importance of oil revenues to achieve Libyan foreign policy goals. 23Kilowatt cable no. 1077, sent from Germany, ‘Planung von Terroraktionen palästinensischer Terroristen,’ 06.03.1973, in: Swiss Federal Archives (SFA) [‘Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv’], E4320- 07 C#1994/349#806*, Eingang KILOWATT, 1971–1972, [hereafter this archive record will be referred to as ‘Incoming Kilowatt.’] ‘Kilowatt’ was the code word used by the Club de Berne members to share intelligence. Most of the cables had only lowercase letters. 8 A. GUTTMANN who urged Abu Iyad to personally meet with Qaddafi as soon as possible. In the meeting with Abu Iyad that allegedly happened in Libya on 24 February 1973, the BfV reported that Qaddafi suggested that the BSO either destroy an Israeli plane in a European city or perpetrate simultaneous incendiary attacks on Israeli embassies in various European cities.24 According to Israeli and German intelligence, Qaddafi approached several Palestinian groups, the ones he knew were using international terrorism as a tactic at that time. These included the Black September Organisation (BSO), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC or Jibril Organisation). He consulted with high members of each group separately and suggested attacks based on what he called a ‘division of labour’ in line with their respective terrorism ‘specialisation.’25 The Libyan government allegedly made it very clear to all its interlocutors that Libya was willing to provide any financial means necessary and would also pay rewards for the successful perpetration of such attacks.26 Mossad believed that the Libyan embassy in Beirut contacted members of the PFLP, asking them to either hijack an Israeli plane and blow it up at a Libyan airfield, or to seize an Israeli ship and bring it to the Libyan port of Tobruk.27 Mossad further thought that Qaddafi had used the Libyan embassy in Damascus to approach the PFLP-GC, whose leader was Ahmed Jibril. In this meeting, Libyan officials and Jibril purportedly discussed aircraft sabotage operations. Mossad thought that Qaddafi suggested smuggling luggage or cargo that contained delayed-action explosive devices.28 Of the various terrorist scenarios, Israel was mostly worried that the Palestinians would be able to force down a plane. This risked being inter­ nationally understood as a direct response to or revenge against Israel’s recent downing of a Libyan plane.29 Such an interpretation could ‘cause great damage to Israel.’30 Mossad therefore estimated that the Palestinians

24Kilowatt cable no. 1077, sent from Germany, ‘Planung von Terroraktionen palästinensischer Terroristen’, 06.03.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972, [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Germany’s cable 1077’]. Israel later confirmed this meeting and Mossad believed that Arafat was also present, but this was not confirmed by the other agencies, Kilowatt cable no. 6105, sent from Israel, ‘PFLP/GC – intentions to attack aircraft,’ 16.04.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972 [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Israel’s cable 6105’]. 25Kilowatt cable no. 6094, sent from Israel, ‘Libya/plans for attacks on Israeli targets to be carried out by the terrorist organisations,’ 09.03.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972, [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Israel’s cable 6094’]. 26Germany’s cable 1077. 27Israel’s cable 6094. 28Ibid. 29Israel’s shooting down of a Libyan civilian plane happened on 21 February 1973. For more context on the Israeli shooting of the Libyan passenger plane, see Brenda Lange, Muammar Qaddafi (New York: Chelsea House 2013), 74; John T. Phelps, ‘Aerial Intrusions by Civil and Military Aircraft in Time of Peace’, Military Law Review 107 (1985), 255–303, 288; and Terence Smith, ‘Israelis Down a Libyan Airliner in the Sinai, Killing at least 74’, New York Times, 22 Febr. 1973, https://www.nytimes.com/1973/ 02/22/archives/israelis-down-a-libyan-airliner-in-the-sinai-killing-at-least-74.html. 30Israel’s cable 6094. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 9 would give priority to attacking planes, rather than hijacking them. Israel believed that with help from Libya or other Arab states, Palestinian groups could execute more powerful attacks. For instance, Israeli intelligence worried that terrorist groups could use diplomatic couriers to place sophisticated sabotage devices on the planes. Another fear was that terrorists could use radio-directed model planes or RPG-missiles to attack planes during landing or take-off.31 This meant that through the help of a state like Libya, the Palestinians could massively increase their military striking capacity. Assessing the way the security services reported these initial Libyan- Palestinian encounters, Israeli and German intelligence in particular insisted that the initiative was pushed forward by Qaddafi, who ‘urged Arafat and Ahmed Jibril to attack an El-Al airliner, promising a big reward for the carrying out of such an operation.’32 With regards to publicly taking responsibility for executed attacks, the intelligence agencies had a more ambiguous assess­ ment of Qaddafi’s intentions. On the one hand, they believed that Qaddafi would want to be visible and identified as the leader of a pan-Arab fight against Israel, which included providing patronage to the Palestinians. On the other hand, when it came to specific terrorist operations, the agencies believed that Qaddafi would not want to be directly incriminated in attacks. It was thus expected that Libyan-supported attacks would be carried out far from Libya and without any directly traceable links with the country.

Sharing ‘raw intelligence’ about attack preparations After these initial contacts, intelligence agencies tracked Libyan efforts to prepare and plan terrorist actions with Palestinian groups. These arrange­ ments were believed to include intelligence collection, training of terrorist agents, weapons transfer, recruitment, and the provision of organisational bases. For instance, Israeli intelligence believed that some terrorists were about to arrive in Europe from Libya and Beirut to collect operational intelligence. Therefore, Israel suggested to its partners that they increase surveillance of suspicious movements from Libya and Lebanon to Europe and to closely watch Libyan embassies and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) officesin Europe.33 This is an interesting case where liaison drove intelligence require­ ments, since European partners seemed to have indeed increased surveil­ lance of these transit routes. In April 1973, a weapons transport by car was detected on its way from Syria to France; Mossad specified it to be a white

31Ibid. 32Israel’s cable 6105. 33Kilowatt cable no. 6095, sent from Israel, ‘further to our watt/6094,’ 12.03.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 10 A. GUTTMANN

Mercedes, gave the license plate number, and hinted that the weapons were in the bottom of the car and in the fuel tank.34 Simultaneously, Israel suspected that a delegation of Palestinian terrorists had stayed in Libya since the end of April 1973 for training purposes, which was also confirmed by German intelligence sources. The BfV notified its partner agencies that the German embassy in Damascus spoke with Tunisian and Moroccan informants, who had both received guerrilla training at two camps in Libya, Tokrah and Tusrah, 71 km southeast of Benghazi.35 These two informants said they had been selected to be part of terrorist operations in Western Europe. The Moroccan informant claimed that he had already participated in a failed attack. The two men further furnished a list of 19 other participants in the guerrilla training to the BfV, which the BfV then shared with its Club de Berne partners. These terrorism trainees were said to have come from Egypt, Libya, and Palestinian refugee camps and would set out for Europe in July to execute terrorist attacks in mid-August.36 For the operational groundwork in Europe, Mossad informed its partners that Libyan intelligence had ‘permanent representatives of terrorist affairs in Europe’ working under diplomatic Libyan cover.37 Mossad detected three such Libyan intelligence officers in Rome and Paris, working at the Libyan embassy, at a Libyan tourist office, and with Libyan airlines. Mossad provided a detailed description of their tasks as follows:

To collect operational intelligence on targets singled out for attack;

To change the documentation of people who come to carry out an attack. The documentation is mostly European;

To provide the perpetrators with money;

To assist in the escape of the perpetrators after the attack. The perpetrators are given a telephone number which they ring when they are in danger. At this number they receive instructions how to reach a safe place, from where they are taken out of the country.38

Libyan logistical support was said to have also been given in the form of hospitality for terrorists at Libyan embassies in Europe. BfV was warned by an anonymous informant that six terrorists had travelled from Brussels to the Cologne/Bonn airport and stayed overnight at the Libyan embassy in Bonn. The terrorists were said to have received SAM-7 rockets, were driving two

34Kilowatt cable no. 6109, sent from Israel, ‘terrorists/car with weapons,’ 07.05.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 35Kilowatt cable no. 1105, sent from Germany, ‘geplante Anschläge palästinensischer Terroristen,’ 27.07.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 36Ibid. 37Kilowatt cable no. 6131, sent from Israel, ‘Libya/intelligence representatives for terrorist affaires in Europe. Field report,’ 25.07.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 38Ibid. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 11

Mercedes, spoke perfect English, and had ‘absolutely no Arab look.’39 Their plan was believed to be to launch an attack against either El-Al, Pan American, or Alitalia planes; they would ‘experiment’ to determine the easiest target. The Dutch intelligence service, Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst (BVD), dis­ covered a Libyan terrorism recruitment structure in Belgium, which also worked under diplomatic cover. Through the interrogation of a terrorist suspect, the BVD identified two officers at the Libyan embassy in Brussels ‘in charge of recruiting terrorists-to-be.’ The interviewee, who was of Algerian nationality, confessed that before his arrest, he had already been recruited and transferred to the Fatah for a plane hijacking.40 Besides recruiting Arab nationals, Israel believed that the Libyan govern­ ment also reached out to local left-wing sympathisers in Europe to convince them to perpetrate terrorist attacks against Israeli companies or people doing business with Israeli companies. Mossad saw this attempt at tightening connections with local groups as the sign of a change in Palestinian armed groups’ operative methods. Mossad believed that negotiations with respec­ tive European leftist extremist terrorist counterparts were already underway.41 Mossad further suspected that Qaddafi was offering payment to radical leftist or Arab organisations around the world in exchange for perpetrating acts of terrorism against Israeli or Jewish people. In other words, it was believed that Qaddafi was going to ‘hire’ people for terrorist jobs.42 Such a mercenary system was later mentioned by one of the terrorists. A hijacker told the stewardess of a KLM flight that he was a ‘professional hijacker earning 3000 Lebanese Liras a month, [and received] free clothing, car, housing.’43 He said this during a KLM hijacking that was undertaken with Libyan support and will be further outlined below. Overall, at this stage the intelligence agencies only had disconnected bits and pieces hinting at possible Libyan-Palestinian collaboration. Most of the cables mentioned that the information had been acquired through a ‘reliable source with access to terrorist circles.’ The collected intelligence was assessed for validity, but otherwise barely processed or analysed before it was sent to the Club de Berne partners. This lack of a bigger picture might, among other

39Kilowatt [no cable no.], sent from Germany, ‘anonymer Telefonanruf beim Flughafen Köln/Bonn,’ 28.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 40Kilowatt cable no. 9065, sent from the Netherlands, ‘C.C. [name of suspect anonymised],’ 27.07.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. The cable was based on a police investigation in which the terrorist suspect explained how he was recruited. 41Kilowatt cable no. 6147, sent from Israel, ‘terrorists/planning of terrorist attacks in Europe,’ 08.10.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 42Kilowatt cable no. 6123, sent from Israel, ‘Libya intends hiring local organisations for acts of terror,’ 18.07.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 43Kilowatt cable no. 9085, sent from the Netherlands, ‘KLM-hijacking on 25–11-73,’ 29.11.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972 [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘The Netherland’s cable 9085’]. 12 A. GUTTMANN things, explain why it was not possible to prevent Libyan-supported attacks, which will be explained next.

A Chaotic Odyssey around the Middle East As police investigations revealed in late 1973, Qaddafi was heavily involved in the organisation of two terrorist attacks. The two attacks were the hijacking of a KLM flightscheduled from Amsterdam to Tokyo on 25 November 1973 and a massacre at Rome Fiumicino Airport with a subsequent hijacking on 17 December 1973. Very little is known today about the KLM hijacking and it has barely been mentioned in secondary literature. With the study of police files and newspaper articles, one can reconstruct the events. KLM flight 861 was scheduled from Amsterdam to Tokyo-Haneda via Athens, Beirut, and Delhi on 25 November 1973. Three Arab nationals boarded the plane in Beirut and hijacked the plane over Iraqi airspace with 271 passengers on board. A chaotic three-day long journey around the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf ensued, with different stops and ever lower and lower demands from the terrorists. Immediately after taking control of the plane, the hijackers forced the pilot to land in Damascus (Syria), where they threatened to blow up the plane if they did not receive more fuel. The Syrian authorities conceded and the terrorists departed for Nicosia (Cyprus). The plane landed there at 1 am on 26 November and the abductors presented their conditions for the first time. The hostages would be freed if seven Palestinian prisoners in Cyprus were released and if the Dutch prime minister issued a public declaration that there would be no transit camps for Jews in the Netherlands, that the Netherlands stop all military aid to Israel, and that KLM not support Israel.44 Previously, Palestinian representatives had reproached the Dutch government’s pro-Israeli policy, but it is not clear what they meant by ‘transit camps for Jews’ in the Netherlands. The seven prisoners were Palestinian terrorists who had perpetrated two attacks in Cyprus on 9 April 1973, one against the Israeli ambassador’s residence in Cyprus and one against an El-Al plane at Nicosia airport. The Cyprus authorities curtly assured the hijackers that the prisoners would be released soon, refilled their tank, and let them leave Nicosia airport. The hijackers forced the pilot to continue to Tripoli, where they landed in the early morning of 26 November and soon entered negotiations with the Dutch chargé d’affaires in Tripoli, M. De Roos. When their demands were rejected, the hijackers got the crew to flyto Malta the next day (27 November). There, all of the passengers and part of

44Kilowatt cable no. 9083, sent from the Netherlands, ‘hijacking of KLM-Boeing 747 flight nr kl 861 (scheduled from Amsterdam – Athens- Beirut – New Delhi to Tokyo) on 25–11-73 shortly after departure from Beirut,’ 26.11.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972, [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘The Netherland’s cable 9083’]. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 13 the crew were released.45 Negotiations failed again and the next day on 28 November the hijackers demanded to be flown to Baghdad. The Iraqi govern­ ment refused to grant landing permission, as did the Kuwaiti and Qatari govern­ ments. Because the plane ran out of fuel, they were allowed to land in Dubai. From there, the hijackers wanted to be flown to Aden, South Yemen. The Yemenite authorities rejected their landing requests, as did the Turkish autho­ rities. After circling over Aden for an hour, the plane returned to Dubai. The hijackers finally surrendered when they were told that they could leave the country without legal consequences. The crew was released, and the incident finally ended without any casualties.46 During and after the hijacking, the Club de Berne alert system was marked by an active exchange particularly in order to understand the security loop­ holes and to identify the perpetrators. Based on the talks between the crew and the hijackers, several elements of the operation were reconstructed. Most importantly, the hijackers managed to smuggle their pistols and hand grenades in closed conserving tins that were filled with sawdust.47 When going through airport security in Beirut, the hijackers claimed that the tins contained food and so they were not opened. The Dutch intelligence agency, BVD, reported that a hijacker told the stewardess that he ‘laughed at the check at Beirut airport – whereas they thoroughly checked their hand luggage, they completely over­ looked the candy-boxes in which the hijackers were carrying their weapons.’48 When all of the passengers were released in Malta, the Dutch authorities examined the KLM passenger list and managed to identify the names of the hijackers and their travel documents. Two of the terrorists had flown with Bahraini passports and one with an Emirati passport.49 The Dutch intelligence service also found the travel agency in Beirut that had issued the hijackers’ tickets.50 MI5 inquired with Bahraini intelligence and informed the Club de Berne partners ‘for your information and not to be disclosed outside your service’ that according to the Bahraini authorities, the names used were ‘not Bahraini names’ and that the authorities had no records of these persons.51 The hijackers destroyed the passports, tickets, and other means of identification prior to leaving the aircraft and they did not provide any details of their identities to

45Kilowatt cable no. 9084, sent from the Netherlands, ‘hijacking of KLM-Boeing 747 flight nr kl 861 from Amsterdam to Tokyo on 25–11-73,’ 27.11.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972, [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘The Netherland’s cable 9084’]. 46‘Les pirates de l’air se sont rendus aux autorités de Dubaï,’ Le Monde, 30.11.1973. 47Kilowatt cable no. 9095, sent from the Netherlands, ‘KLM-hijacking, 25–11-73,’ 14.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 48The Netherland’s cable 9085. 49The Netherland’s cable 9084 [The cable specified that the passport was Ras al-Khaimah, which is one of the seven Emirates the UAE consists of]. 50Kilowatt cable no. 9090, sent from the Netherlands, ‘KLM-hijacking, 25–11-73,’ 05.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 51Kilowatt cable no. 5051, sent from Great Britain, ‘hijack KLM flt kl861 – 25-11-73,’ 10.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972 [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Great Britain’s cable 5051’]. 14 A. GUTTMANN the Dubai authorities.52 Thus, British, Israeli, and Dutch intelligence all assumed that the men were travelling on forged passports and under false names.53 The identification of the terrorist organisation that committed the attack proved to be equally difficult, since no Palestinian group claimed responsi­ bility. On the contrary, at the Arab Summit meeting in Algiers that took place simultaneously on 26 November 1973 under the auspices of Egyptian pre­ sident Sadat, the Palestinian delegation formally condemned the hijacking and asserted that the Palestinian movement had absolutely nothing to do with it.54 At first, Mossad suspected the PFLP because of three clues. First, the operational methods were ‘typically PFLP,’ particularly the use of Bahraini and Emirati passports. Second, the PFLP had announced that it opposed the ceasefire with Israel and that it would continue to carry out attacks. Third, one of the hijacker’s descriptions matched the appearance of a known PFLP member.55 In line with this, a ‘reliable source’ reported to the British intelli­ gence services that senior Fatah officials believed that the PFLP was respon­ sible for this operation; which also meant that the informant indicated to MI5 that the Fatah was not responsible for it.56 Finally, the intelligence agencies pursued a lead that came directly from the hijackers’ own claims and that later turned out to be the most important piece of information: The hijackers told the KLM crew that they were part of a new group called the ‘Arab National Youth Organization for the Liberation of Palestine’ (ANYOLP).57 The Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet explained that they were not aware of the existence of such a group, but were able to link it to previous attacks where the designation ‘Arab National Youth’ was used. The commonality of all those attacks had been that they were ‘inspired by Libya.’58 Shin Bet identified three such attacks with Libyan connections. First, there was the hijacking of a Lufthansa plane on 29 October 1972 from Beirut to obtain the release of the perpetrators of the Munich massacre. Shin Bet specified that ‘this operation was carried out by the PFLP (Habash) using the designation “Arab National Youth,” the plane landed in Libya, and the

52Ibid. 53Kilowatt cable no. 6166, sent from Israel, ‘KLM hijacking on 25.11.73,’ 07.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972; and Kilowatt cable no. 9092, sent from the Netherlands, ‘KLM-hijacking on 25–11- 73,’ 07.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 54‘Les Fedayin qui ont détouré un Boeing de la K.L.M. font connaitre leurs exigences’, Le Monde, 27.11.1973. 55Kilowatt cable no. 6170, sent from Israel, ‘hijack KLM flt kl-861 – 25.11.73,’ 12.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 56Great Britain’s cable 5051. 57The Netherland’s cable 9083. Sometimes it was also referred to as the ‘Organisation of the National Arab Youth for the Liberation of Palestine’ or words were left out like the ‘Arab National Youth for the Liberation of Palestine’ or the ‘Arab Youth Organization for the Liberation of Palestine.’ 58Kilowatt cable no. 6154, sent from Israel, ‘hijacking of KLM flight no. 861 to Benghazi,’ 27.11.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972, [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Israel’s cable 6154’]. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 15 deal for the release was also made in Libya.’ Second, the cable mentioned the attempt by the PFLP-GC to smuggle a booby-trapped record player aboard an El-Al aircraft in August 1972. Shin Bet explained that ‘the perpetrators used the name “Arab National Youth Organization for the Liberation of Palestine,” and were in contact with the Libyan embassy in Rome.’ Third, Israel men­ tioned that the PFLP used the name ANYOLP when it attempted to blow up an El-Al airliner and attack the residence of the Israeli ambassador to Cyprus on 9 April 1973. Shin Bet had ‘reports that Libya had planned and financed the attack and the terrorist carried a flight map marked to Libya.’59 It is interesting to note that the KLM hijackers of 25 November landed in Nicosia requesting the release of precisely those imprisoned Palestinians that had perpetrated the Cyprus attack of 9 April 1973. Israel’s cable did not mention this, but Shin Bet inferred from the above that when terrorists used the designation ANYOLP during an attack, it was a form of concealed indication that there had been Libyan involvement in the planning or execu­ tion of the attack. With regard to the KLM hijacking of November 1973, Shin Bet believed that Libyan-supported terrorism had now taken a new dimension because ANYOLP had become a terrorist group in its own right, one that operated independently of other Palestinian organisations − especially since already existing groups demonstratively distanced themselves from it. Subsequently, the Israelis invested considerable effort into understanding ANYOLP and its operational methods and promised to send updates to its partners as soon as possible.

A Massacre in Rome and escape Hijacking While Israeli intelligence further investigated ANYOLP, the group perpetrated its second attack and this time it was far bloodier.60 The attack started at 1:50 pm on 17 December 1973 at the west terminal of Rome Fiumicino Airport. Five terrorists opened their hand luggage, pulled out Sterling submachine guns, and fired indiscriminately at the 200 people in the waiting area.61 Two people were killed on the spot and the shots broke some of the glass walls of the building. The terrorists pointed their weapons at six police agents work­ ing at the security inspection and forced them to come with them onto the runway. On the runway, the terrorist group split. Two of them went with the police agents towards adjacent Air France and Lufthansa planes, and the rest ran towards a Pan American plane, which was being fuelled in preparation for

59Ibid. 60For an account in Italian about this terrorist attack, see Paradisi and Priore, La Strage Dimenticata. 61Kilowatt cable no. 7123, sent from Italy, ‘action terroriste arabe a l’aeroport de Fiumicino, le 17.12.1973,’ 20.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972. 16 A. GUTTMANN a flight to Beirut and Teheran. The sliding scales of the Pan American plane had not yet been removed, which allowed the terrorists to climb up the front and the rear of the plane and to throw in phosphorus incendiary hand grenades. They went back down, launched grenades from the outside of the fuselage, and shot at everyone who tried to exit the plane. The airplane caught fire immediately and with the exits blocked, the passengers were trapped inside. After a while, crew members eventually managed to open one emergency exit over the wing and, together with the firefighters, evacuated as many passengers as possible. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, 27 passengers and one crew member burned to death and 31 further passen­ gers were heavily injured.62 As the Pan American grenade attack was happening, the other terrorist commando unit forced the six police officers to board the Lufthansa plane, where the pilot and co-pilot, three flight attendants, and a luggage handler were also taken as hostages. The Air France plane had its doors closed and was ready for taxi and therefore, as the hijackers explained later, the Lufthansa plane was selected.63 Also on board the plane was an on duty Italian customs officer, who tried to confront the terrorists. The terrorists immediately fired a hail of bullets at him and instantly killed him. With all of the hostages and the five terrorists aboard – including the terrorists that had just attacked the Pan American plane – at 1:15 pm the plane got ready for take-off and departed at 1:32 pm; a little more than half an hour after the attack started. During the flight, all of the hostages except the pilot were chained to one another with the Italian police officers’ handcuffs. The hijack­ ers wanted to go to Beirut, but the Lebanese authorities refused to grant them landing permission,64 so the hijackers requested to land in Athens, Greece. In Athens, the terrorists negotiated all night for the release of two Palestinians who were jailed in Greece for perpetrating a terrorist attack at the Athens airport on 5 August 1973, which killed five people and wounded 55. To increase the pressure on the Greek authorities, the hijackers killed one of the hostages, the Italian luggage handler, who was on the plane by coincidence when the terrorists took control of it. The hijackers threatened to kill each hostage one by one if their demands were not met by 10:30 pm. The pilot communicated over the radio with the tower and, in his desperation, he convinced the

62Kilowatt cable no. 7120, sent from Italy, ‘action terroriste comise a l’aeroport de Fiumicino le 17.12.1973,’ 18.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972, [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Italy’s cable 7120’]. 63Kilowatt cable no. 1135, sent from Germany, ‘Anschlag auf die Pan Am in Rom und Entführung einer Lufthansa-Maschine,’ 21.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972, [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Germany’s cable 1135’]. 64‘Rome hijacking,’ FLIGHT International, 27.12.1973, accessible online: https://www.flightglobal.com/ pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%203057.html. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 17

Greek authorities of the terrorists’ seriousness. He finally got the autho­ rities to agree to free the Palestinians in order to save innocent lives. When the prisoners were about to be released, events took a rather surprising turn. The two prisoners did not recognise the legitimacy of the terrorist group that perpetrated the attack and therefore refused to join them.65 This forced the hijackers to abandon the operation. Consequently, the body of the luggage handler was dumped onto the runway (and was horribly lacerated when the plane subsequently ran it over), one of the heavily injured police officers was allowed to leave, and then the plane took off at 8:35 am on 18 December 1973. The hijackers demanded that they be flown to Tripoli (Libya), but the pilot estimated that they did not have enough fuel. After circling over Cyprus for a while, the plane made an immediate stop in Damascus, where the tank was refilled and the food supply was replenished. The hijackers contemplated ending the operation there, but, according to the Lufthansa crew, they were worried about being arrested and put on trial by the Syrian authorities.66 As a last resort, the abductors wanted to go to Kuwait. The Kuwaiti authorities first refused to grant them landing permission but then promised the terror­ ists free passage without arrest if they liberated the hostages. The terrorists accepted this proposition and, finally, at 6:20 pm on 18 December 1973 the plane landed in Kuwait.

Secret justifications and exculpations Similarly to the previous attack, the intelligence agencies placed considerable emphasis on determining the identities of the perpetrators and their umbrella organisation. Four services were particularly active in this respect. The Italian and German security services sent reports based on the testimony of the people involved (e.g., reports from the Lufthansa pilot and crew members and accounts from Italian police agents), while British and Israeli intelligence tried to understand the organisational structure behind the attacks. First, a day after the attack Italy sent a long report about the attack and provided an account of how it happened from the perspective of the people who witnessed the attack. Interestingly, this account not only described the events, but whenever possible the cable praised how the Italian officials handled the situation or justified their actions. Four passages are noteworthy. First, it mentioned that because there were 200 people in the waiting hall, the police officers at the checkpoint had ‘no other choice than to surrender themselves to the will of the aggressors.’ In other words, it justified why the

65Paradisi and Priore, Strage Dimenticata, 20. 66Germany’s cable 1135. 18 A. GUTTMANN

(armed) police officers did not try to fight the terrorists but instead let themselves be taken hostage. Second, the cable stressed that the Italian customs officer on duty on the Lufthansa plane, who tried to resist the terrorists, was found dead next to his pistol, which had its cartridge in the barrel. This implied that he was preparing to shoot but that the terrorists had killed him before he could. Third, the cable mentioned that the burning plane was at risk of exploding during the rescue operation, but ‘withstanding the danger that they faced’ the firefighters helped to evacuate the passengers. The risk of explosion was, fourth, also given as reason for why the police officers did not use their arms against the terrorists while they were firing at the Pan American plane.67 The German BfV sent a report that was based on the account of a German security official who was in the Lufthansa plane when it was hijacked. In a similar vein, the report included an interpretation of the events that presented German nationals in a more positive light. It emphasised for instance that there was nothing the security official or the Lufthansa crew could have done to prevent the hijacking. According to the cable, the security official realised that there was turmoil in the waiting area, saw that the glass walls had broken, heard shooting, and noticed a group of approximately ten armed men walking together with five Italian police officers towards the Lufthansa plane. He thought that these events were part of a security exer­ cise, which is why he had not thought about intervening.68 The cable further suggested that the kidnappers chose the Lufthansa plane because its doors were still open, while the Air France plane had its doors shut. Thus it concluded that the ‘German plane was selected by mere coincidence.’69 Along the same line, it shared its impression that the main target of the attack was the Pan American plane and that Lufthansa was only used to escape. It thus ascribed itself a secondary role and pre-emptively exempted itself from any responsibility for the way the attack unfolded. These two intelligence reports show that besides identifying security gaps, the agencies sent their accounts in order to avert any accusations of crisis mismanagement and to relieve their governments from any co-responsibility. At the same time, by sharing a large part of the available information and by assuring its partners that everything in their capacity had been done to counter the terrorists, the agencies tried to present themselves as valuable partners in the fight against terrorism. In this context, Club de Berne corre­ spondence can be considered as a platform for foreign political communica­ tion in which information could be exchanged that would have been too sensitive or inappropriate to communicate through official channels.

67Italy’s cable 7120. 68Germany’s cable 1135. 69Ibid. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 19

Qaddafi’s ‘own’ palestinian terrorist group After the Rome airport attack, the Club de Berne liaison was further used to share hints about the perpetrators and to collectively solve the puzzle of who lay behind the Rome airport massacre. MI5 and Mossad provided the first puzzle pieces about the terrorist group’s identity, which led them again to ANYOLP and Libya. Two days after the attack on 19 December 1973, MI5 sent a cable expres­ sing its suspicion ‘that extremist group within ambience Fatah/Black September [is] likely to have been responsible for recent Rome/Athens operation.’70 It also believed that this extremist group was based in Libya.71 Mossad concurred with this interpretation and traced the events more spe­ cifically to ANYOLP. The group was described as ‘an organisation which operates under the aegis of the Libyan government.’72 Its membership and cooperation mechanism with Libya were explained in detail as follows:

It is largely composed of extremist elements from the Fatah/Black September, the PFLP, the PFLP-GC, and perhaps also al-Saiqa. The Libyan government gives the organisation its instructions, provides it with money, and helps it obtain weapons and sabotage material, and transfers them abroad. Libyan embassies may be involved in assisting the organisation’s terror operations.73

About ANYOLP’s operational methods, Mossad said that it had:

permanent representatives in contact with Libyan intelligence from whom they receive their instructions to pass on to their organisations. They also help in technical aspects such as choice of operational personnel and their despatch to target areas. We [Israeli intelligence] believe the Fatah representative to be N.A. H. and the PFLP representative to be N.H.74

To understand the specific collaboration between ANYOLP and Libya during the Rome attack, MI5 inquired among its ‘friendly services in the region’ (without saying who) and was told by an informant ‘working in the govern­ ment of a Middle Eastern country’ that: ‘the terrorists concerned did not belong to any Palestinian organisation but were working for Qadhafi and Libyan intelligence service.’75 This government official asserted that Qaddafi had a key role in the preparation of the attack and believed that Qaddafi himself had held a short meeting with the commando before they were

70Kilowatt cable no. 5053, sent from Great Britain, ‘incident Rome Airport 17.12.73,’ 19.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972 [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Great Britain’s cable 5053’]. 71Ibid. 72Kilowatt cable no. 6175, sent from Israel, ‘the terrorist attack at Fiumicino (Rome) Airport – 17.12.73,’ 20.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972, [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Israel’s cable 6175’]. 73Ibid. 74Ibid., names anonymised. 75Kilowatt cable no. 5056, sent from Great Britain, ‘incident Rome Airport 17.12.73,’ 21.12.1973, in: SFA, Incoming Kilowatt, 1971–1972 [hereafter this cable is referred to as ‘Great Britain’s cable 5056’]. 20 A. GUTTMANN briefed by Major Awad Ali Hamza, at the time the head of Libya’s military and a member of the Revolutionary Command Council. MI5 also explained the logistical support mechanism and mentioned that the terrorist squad had been issued with Libyan diplomatic laissez-passer passports that were deliberately provided with forged Libyan stamps so that the operation could subsequently be denied. Half of the terrorists had travelled from Libya via Madrid and met the other half at a men’s lavatory at the Madrid airport. There the arms and explosives were handed over and the group flew to Rome together. MI5’s source estimated that the Pan American aircraft was selected because no El-Al aircraft were available. Furthermore, as a reward for the successful completion of the operation, the informant was able to trace a money transfer of 230,000 Libyan dinars to a bank in Beirut.76 The cable ended with a suggestion on how to counter Qaddafi’s action: MI5 recommended ‘expos[ing] Libyan involvement by leaks to the press.’77 One can summarise Mossad and MI5’s description of ANYOLP as it being Libya’s ‘own’ Palestinian terrorist organisation, under the direct control of Qaddafi and an instrument to further Libya’s interests in the Middle East. For the logistical support of the Rome attack, Libyan-ANYOLP cooperation was outlined in great detail, from the weapon transfer in a toilet to the personal briefing by Qaddafi.78 Comparing these intelligence reports with secondary literature, today still very little is known about ANYOLP. Works that mention ANYOLP place it in the context of the fragmentation of the Palestinian movement.79 The split among the various factions centred around the question of whether or not international terrorism should be used as a means to attract world attention to the plight of Palestinian people.80 The group who in 1973 opposed terror­ ism as a tactic, mainly Fatah’s core leadership under Yasser Arafat, thought that efforts to obtain diplomatic recognition and government support would

76Ibid. 77Ibid. Other agencies did not reply to this suggestion and to the author’s knowledge there were no such leaks to the press. 78It might be interesting to link this account of Qaddafi’s involvement in the planning of the Rome attack to terrorism studies literature on state sponsored terrorism. If interested in state sponsored terrorism, see for instance Byman’s work, which discusses different types of state-supported terrorism, states’ motivations for such sponsorship and its impact, Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections. States That Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007); for specific case studies see also Patrice J. McSherry, Predatory States. Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers 2005); Milos Popovic, ‘Fragile Proxies: Explaining Rebel Defection Against Their State Sponsors’, Terrorism and Political Violence 29/5 (2017), 922–42; Thomas Riegler, ‘Quid pro Quo: State Sponsorship of Terrorism in the Cold War’, in Jussi Hanhimäki and Bernhard Blumenau (eds.), An International History of Terrorism. Western and Non-Western Experiences (London: Routledge 2013). 79John W. Amos, Palestinian Resistance. Organization of a Nationalist Movement (New York: Pergamon Press 1980), 228. 80Paul Thomas Chamberlin, The Global Offensive. The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012), 258. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 21 be more fruitful to secure subsidies, territorial bases, and diplomatic success.81 ANYOLP was such a splinter group that advocated for a radical political line and, similarly to Qaddafi, was against peace negotiations after the Yom Kippur War.82 According to the few works that mention the group, ANYOLP was created in 1973 by Muhammad ‘Adb al-Ghafour.83 He operated from Libya and, as also reported by the intelligence agencies, the group was supported financially and operationally by Qaddafi’s administration.84 One obvious discrepancy between the little information that we have from secondary sources and the intelligence reports concerns the question about who was ‘in charge’ of the group and its operations. One cable indeed mentioned al-Ghafour, but saw him as a ‘representative of Fatah’ to ANYOLP, not as the group’s leader.85 The intelligence reports disregarded the possibility that ANYOLP might have been created by the Palestinians themselves in the context of inner Palestinian political disputes. The fact that all Arab governments condemned the attack and no known Palestinian organisation claimed responsibility for it was seen as an indication that Libya was indeed responsible for these attacks. In this vein, while Qaddafi was very involved in the organisation of the attack, one can argue that the agencies overestimated the degree of influ­ ence that he had and underestimated Palestinian divisions and agency.

Intelligence agencies’ assessment of Qaddafi’s intentions In the few cables that speculated about Qaddafi’s intentions, the agencies connected the Libyan-Palestinian terrorist actions to the Yom Kippur War, the subsequent peace talks in Geneva, and Arab states’ policies towards Israel. The timing of the KLM hijacking was linked to the Arab summit in Algiers, in which the Libyans did not participate, and which took place on the same day as the hijacking. Mossad thought that Qaddafi’s ‘intention could be the attempt to embarrass the conference by stressing the continuation of the armed struggle for the liberation of the occupied territories.’86 The Rome attack took place exactly on the first day of the negotiations in Geneva and British intelligence therefore thought that the Rome massacre was ‘instigated by president Qadhafiwith the object of disrupting the Geneva

81Wendy Pearlman, Violence, nonviolence, and the Palestinian national movement (New York: Cambridge University Press 2014), 78–82. 82Mark Ensalaco, Middle Eastern Terrorism. From Black September to September 11 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 71. See also Albert Parry, Terrorism: From Robespierre to the Weather Underground (Dover Publications 2013), 463. 83Yazid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State. The Palestinian National Movement 1949–1993 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011), 311. 84Ibid. 85Israel’s cable 6175. 86Israel’s cable 6154. 22 A. GUTTMANN peace conference.’87 In another cable, MI5 specified that the attack aimed at ‘discrediting more moderate elements in the PLO during current peace negotiations in Geneva.’88 Similarly, Mossad believed that the attack was an ‘attempt by Khadafi to split the Palestinian terrorist organisations, part of which have agreed to participate in the peace talks to which Libya is inex­ orably opposed.’89 In this vein, Mossad and MI5 described Qaddafi as an advocate for an extremist line in Arab politics, strongly opposing any possible peace with Israel. According to intelligence agencies, Qaddafi wanted to continue the war, indirectly, through spectacular terrorist attacks against Israeli and Western targets around the world.90 Thus, according to the Club de Berne members, Qaddafi’s intended goal of the attacks was to strengthen the sections in the Palestinian resistance that favoured terrorist violence. Based on secondary literature, the use of terrorism also corresponded to al-Ghafour’s agenda.91 In this vein, the motives that were attributed to Qaddafi for the terrorist acts, also corresponded to al- Ghafour’s intentions. The question remains about who controlled the agenda of ANYOLP. A likely scenario based on the intelligence reports and secondary literature is that this might have been an alliance of convenience where Qaddafi’s and al-Ghafour’s interests converged. Qaddafi’s reasons for supporting the attack, as described by the intelli­ gence agencies, also generally correspond to what we know today about Qaddafi’s foreign political goals. Alienated by his exclusion from the planning of the Yom Kippur war, Qaddafi directed his anger not only against Israel but also against his neighbouring Arab rivals.92 While Qaddafi’s role was over­ blown, the general frame under which the agencies interpreted Qaddafi’s motivations was accurate.

Conclusions Once the Club de Berne members heard about meetings between Qaddafi and representatives of Palestinian armed groups, the intelligence agencies poured resources to assemble the puzzle pieces to understand Qaddafi’s involvement. What might be the Libyan government’s plans? They asked, presuming that the initiative and action mainly came from Libya. Analysing

87Great Britain’s cable 5056. 88Great Britain’s cable 5053. 89Israel’s cable 6154. 90Israel’s cable 6175. 91For Libya’s emphasis on supporting radical elemnts of the Palestinian movement, cf Pargeter, Libya. The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi, 125 and Ronald Bruce St John, Historical Dictionary of Libya (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers 2014), 221. For al-Ghafour’s agenda, see Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, 311. 92Genugten, Libya in Western Foreign Policies, 86–7. THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 23 correspondence between the 18 members of the Club de Berne alerting system, this article has argued that the agencies held a biased view of agency. Qaddafi was seen as the initiator of the first meetings with Palestinian representatives, as the organiser of terrorist attacks, and as the sole string- puller behind ANYOLP, while the agencies attributed almost no agency to the Palestinians. The many indications of Libyan involvement, based on evidence from multiple informants of various agencies, suggest that Libya was very actively involved, but the lines about who was the main driving force behind the attacks are rather blurry. Secondary literature positions ANYOLP at the fringes of the Palestinian movement, created by al-Ghafour in radical opposition to Arafat’s course. While the Club de Berne members correctly placed the attacks in opposition to more moderate Palestinian forces, the intelligence agencies had not considered that ANYOLP might have been created by the Palestinians them­ selves. In short, the agencies overrated Qaddafi’s influence, but correctly understood the intentions behind the attacks. The assumption, as presented in secondary literature, that ANYOLP was in opposition to the core of the Palestinian movement can be confirmed by the Club de Berne records and their context. Three aspects support the inter­ pretation that ANYOLP was a radical Palestinian splinter group. The first one relates to a form of Libyan-Palestinian system of ‘terrorism-mercenaries.’93 The agencies mentioned mercenary practices numerously, either in the con­ text of Qaddafi promising monetary rewards as incentives to perpetrate an attack under his wing, or by the terrorists themselves openly bragging about having received ‘salaries’ for their terrorist ‘work performance.’ This terrorism- supporting hiring system indicates that some Palestinians were literally pro­ viding a foreign political ‘service’ to ANYOLP. The second aspect relates to the course of events during the first terrorist attack, the hijacking of the KLM flight. The detained Palestinians in Greek prisons preferred incarceration to being affiliated with ANYOLP. The third aspect relates to Palestinian reactions after both terrorist attacks. The Palestinian leadership strongly distanced itself from these attacks and assured that they had nothing to do with it. All three aspects suggest that ANYOLP lacked overall Palestinian legitimacy. Despite ANYOLP’s rather marginal standing in the Middle Eastern conflict, the threat of Libyan-Palestinian terrorism was taken very seriously, not only by Israel but also by its European partner agencies. Cables were exchanged daily and contained highly sensitive intelligence that was acquired through vulner­ able human intelligence sources, who must have had direct access to Libyan or Palestinian networks. This suggests that the Club de Berne liaison and its

93In this context, the term ‘mercenary’ is used to emphasises monetary incentives behind terrorism as main motive, but it is not suggested that it was at the complete expense of other motives such as ideological commitment to the Palestinian cause. 24 A. GUTTMANN alerting system was a trusted means of communication. Furthermore, agencies usually replied promptly to another service’s request and provided intelligence that was as timely and useful as possible. In doing so, agencies demonstrated their diligence and contributed to effective cooperation. Interestingly, there was very little variation in the way Libyan actions were being portrayed. In other words, the reports rarely contradicted one another, but each agency contributed additional information that was hoped would lead to the full picture. This suggests a form of group think, where it was considered inappropriate to question the partners’ information. By the same token, given the international setting of the Club de Berne, it was difficult to verify another country’s intelligence. Furthermore, in order to track Libyan- Palestinian terrorist actions one was particularly dependent on information that was acquired through covert means. An interesting trait of this Euro-Israeli intelligence-sharing was its concen­ tration on what one might call ‘raw intelligence,’ namely reports that were near verbatim paraphrases of what the informants had told the agency. This article argues that on the level of investigating who the perpetrators were or of understanding the logistics of an attack, it was most effective to commu­ nicate to partners any hints, without much filter. This was also connected to a sense of urgency: with the next attack possibly only a few days away, the agencies shared their intelligence almost immediately as it arrived in order to maximise the chance of thwarting an attack. But besides raw intelligence, at times the Club de Berne was also used to convey a political message, particularly during information exchanges after the Rome attack. In those cables, as has been shown, the results of investi­ gative reports communicated witness accounts but they also relieved the sending country from any responsibility or highlighted that it could not have prevented the outcome. Subtle justifications like these also indicate that participating countries tried to present themselves in the best possible way towards their partners. Through the Club de Berne, governments had thus obtained a parallel diplomatic communication method for those types of information that would have been too secret to reveal through other diplo­ matic or public channels. Despite intelligence agencies’ intense cooperation, ANYOLP did manage to organise covert terrorist attacks in Europe, particularly brutal ones where victims suffered horrific deaths like burning alive. Ironically for the Palestinians involved and for Qaddafi, these operations backfired. With the continuation of terrorist acts, Israelis and Europeans had further incentives to work together. Having kept those intelligence-exchanges absolutely secret, they did not risk affecting European relations with Arab states. Israel, in return, thus gained valuable help in its combat against Palestinian terrorism in Europe. Altogether, the Club de Berne hosted a venue of tactical intelligence exchange, which was of strategic value to those involved and allowed to THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 25 piece together Qaddafi’s involvement in the terrorist attacks. In this vein, this article has demonstrated how the agencies readily cooperated and inter­ preted the threat with varying degree of accuracy between actions and intentions. This was part of Western Europe’s first, but not last, response to Qaddafi’s support for terrorist attacks in Europe.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the Logic of Informal Security Cooperation: Counterterrorism Intelligence-sharing in Europe (LINSEC) grant agreement No [833120]

Notes on contributor

Dr Aviva Guttmann is a Research Fellow at King’s College London (KCL) in King’s Intelligence and Security Group and a Marie Curie Senior Research Fellow at the Center for War Studies at Southern Denmark University (SDU). Aviva is the founder and chair of the Women’s Intelligence Network (WIN), which connects and promotes women scholars and practitioners in the field of intelligence studies. Her Marie Curie research project is called ‘The Logic of Informal Security Cooperation: Counterterrorism Intelligence-sharing in Europe’ (LINSEC). Her research focuses on the international relations of intelligence agencies and security cooperation in Europe and the Middle East during and after the Cold War. She has published a monograph on The Origins of International Counterterrorism (2018) and contributed several articles to refereed academic journals of history, intelligence, and security. She comments regularly on current intelligence affairs in major Swiss news media. She was educated and held research positions with universities in Basel, Geneva (IHEID), Paris (Sciences Po), Bern, St Andrews, Bologna (SAIS), and London (LSE and KCL). On top of her academic curriculum, she has three years of professional experience in international security in Nigeria and Geneva.

ORCID

Aviva Guttmann http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5601-2463

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Archival material

Swiss Federal Archives (SFA) [‘Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv’], E4320-07C#1994/ 349#806*, Eingang KILOWATT, 1971-1972, [in the article referred to as ‘Incoming Kilowatt.’] ‘Kilowatt’ was the code word used by the Club de Berne members to share intelligence.