The chief of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in Lebanon has threatened to launch worldwide attacks against American and Israeli interests if the Palestinian leader is harmed by Israel.
Speaking in a heavily guarded office in the Rashidieh refugee camp on the weekend, Brigadier Sultan Abul-Aynayn said there were no longer any red lines constraining the Palestinians and hinted that fighters could in a “short time” launch attacks across the Lebanon-Israel border.
“If one hair on the head of Arafat is harmed, the US had better protect its interests around the world. I mean what I am saying. The US should protect itself if anything happens to Arafat,” he said. “We are not like Osama bin Laden, but we have our own style of response.”
He added that the Palestinian diaspora could be mobilized to launch attacks against “Zionist and US interests.” “Our reach is long, and with this continuous struggle we have the right to respond.”
According to the Lebanese Daily Star, Abul-Aynayn urged Washington to intervene immediately in the Israeli assault on Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, warning that failure to do so would force the Palestinians to resort to the tactics of Black September.
“The world forced us once before to create an organization called Black September,” Abul-Aynayn said. “We hope the world won’t force us to use the tactics of Black September once again.”
The Black September group, comprising several factions, was responsible for a number of international terror attacks in the early 1970s, including the 1972 kidnapping and killing of Israeli athletes in Munich.
“Even if Arafat tells us to stay calm and watch television we will not do it. We cannot,” Abul-Aynayn said. (Albawaba.com)
