Ali Hassan Salameh
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- "Red Prince" redirects here. "The Red Prince" was also a common nickname of the Romanian communist Scarlat Callimachi.
Ali Hassan Salameh (Arabic: علي حسن سلامة, transliteration: ʿAlī Ḥasan Salāmah) (Hebrew: עלי חסן סלאמה) (died January 22, 1979) was the chief of operations — code name Abu Hassan - for Black September, the organization responsible for the Munich Massacre (1972) and other attacks; he was also the founder of Force 17.
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[edit] Biography
Salameh was born in the Palestinian town of Qula to a wealthy family. He was the son of Shaykh Hassan Salameh, who was killed fighting Israelis in 1948, north of Jaffa. He was educated in Germany and is thought to have received his military training in Cairo and Moscow[citation needed].
He had a very popular appeal for Palestinian young men; his nickname underlined his popularity — the "Red Prince" flaunted his wealth, surrounded by beautiful women and driving sports cars[citation needed], all while fighting Israel. In 1978, he married Georgina Rizk, a Lebanese celebrity who was Miss Universe 1971. He had children by a previous marriage {reprotably to a granddaugther of Mufti of JerusalemMohammad Amin al-Husayni}.
After the Munich Massacre, he was hunted by the Israeli Mossad during Operation Wrath of God. In 1973, Mossad killed an innocent Moroccan waiter, Ahmed Bouchiki in what became known as the Lillehammer affair in Norway, mistaking Bouchiki for Salameh.
Mossad assassinated Salameh in Beirut on 22 January, 1979 using a remote-controlled car bomb. Eight other people were also killed in the explosion.[1]
According to several sources, Salameh served as a secret contact between the PLO and the CIA from 1970 until his death, guaranteeing Americans' safety in exchange for financial and political support.[1] He helped protect Americans in Beirut, and his role was to facilitate contacts between the Palestinians and Americans, in hope of obtaining American support for the Palestinians.
Ali Hassan Salameh was featured in the plot of the Steven Spielberg film Munich as one of the assassination targets. He appears as the character named Jamal Ramlawi in the spy novel Agents of Innocence by David Ignatius, a thinly disguised account of his recruitment by the CIA [2].
[edit] Death
Salameh was killed on the 2nd of January, 1979 in Beirut by a car bomb. It is widely believed that Israeli security forces were behind the assassination and that it was part of the Operation Wrath of God campaign, in response to the Munich massacre in 1972.
It is believed that Mossad recruited Erika Chambers, a British citizen, to carry out Salameh's assassination. She traveled to the Middle East with a charity supporting Palestinian refugees and arranged a meeting with Salameh in Beirut, where Salameh was being harbored by the Lebanese government. Chamber learned Salameh's daily routine and arranged for a car bomb to planted on a street which Salameh used. As his convoy drove past, Chambers activated the explosive, killing him and four of his bodyguards. Four innocent bystanders were also killed. [2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Massacre in Munich: The Manhunt for the Killers Behind the 1972 Olympics Massacre, Michael Bar Bar-Zohar, Eitan Haber.
- BBC News article on the Bayonet/Wrath of God operation [3]
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Shalev, Noam 'The hunt for Black September', BBC News Online, 26 January, 2006, accessed 14 March, 2006.
- ^ "Death of a Terrorist", Time, February 5, 1979. Accessed March 26, 2007.
