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PLO Faction Head Habash Dies; Group Hijacked 4 Jets

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 27, 2008

AMMAN, Jordan - George Habash, whose radical Palestine Liberation Organization faction gained notoriety after the simultaneous hijackings of four Western airliners in 1970 and the seizure of an Air France flight to Entebbe, Uganda, died Saturday in Jordan. He was 81.

The former guerrilla leader, whose rivalry with Yasser Arafat spurred him to start the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, died of a heart attack in Amman, said Leila Khaled, a longtime PFLP member.

Habash's group was the second-largest in the PLO after Fatah, the faction of Arafat and current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas called Habash a "historic leader," declared a three-day mourning period. Habash and his group gained notoriety for the 1970 hijackings of four Western airliners over the United States, Europe, the Far East and the Persian Gulf.

The Associated Press

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