Posted on 09/06/2004 11:37:38 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
After 31 years, the FBI has opened an investigation into the involvement of Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in the murders of two U.S. diplomats in Sudan in 1973, WorldNetDaily has learned.
FBI agents are now gathering evidence about Arafat's culpability in a March 1, 1973, operation in which eight members of the Black September terrorist organization, part of Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO, stormed the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, reportedly on Arafat's orders, taking U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel, diplomat Charge d'Affaires George Curtis Moore and others hostage, and one day later, killing Noel, Moore and Belgian diplomat Guy Eid.
Two agents from FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., Bill McDermott and Kathleen Reed, recently flew to Portland, Ore., to interview James J. Welsh, the National Security Agency's Palestinian analyst at the time of the murders.
Welsh has said he intercepted a transmission from Arafat involving an imminent operation in Khartoum, and charges the NSA has had tapes of Arafat ordering the executions, a story first reported by WND in 2001.
"They called me and said they are reopening an old murder investigation," Welsh told WND. "I met with the agents for several hours, gave them a detailed account of everything that happened, and handed over to them original copies of a lot of materials and correspondence I have accumulated over the years. They were supposed to return my things, but I'm still waiting."
Welsh says he detailed for the agents the communication he intercepted from Yasser Arafat, and how within minutes, the director of the NSA was notified and a decision was made to send a rare "FLASH" message – the highest priority – to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum via the State Department warning of a possible attack.
But Welsh recalled the message didn't reach the embassy in time. Somewhere between the NSA and the State Department, someone decided the warning was too vague, and the alert was downgraded in urgency.
The next day, the Black September operation took place, and after 26 hours of intense negotiations – the gunmen demanded the freeing from Jordan of many Palestinians, including Abu Daoud, a leader of the Black September Organization; the release of Sirhan Sirhan, Robert Kennedy's assassin, from jail in California; and the liberation of "Palestinian women in prison in Israel" – the two U.S. diplomats were murdered.
Many have claimed that Arafat personally sent an order of execution to the terrorists via radio broadcast: "Why are you waiting? The people's blood in the Cold River cries for vengeance." "Cold River" was reportedly the code word for executing the captives. Supposed NSA recordings of that call have disappeared.
Arafat reportedly then ordered the eight gunmen to surrender peacefully to the Sudanese authorities. Two were released for "lack of evidence." Later, in June 1973, the other six were found guilty of murdering the diplomats. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, but released 24 hours later to the PLO.
During their trial, commander Salim Rizak, also known as Abu Ghassan, told the court: "We carried out this operation on the orders of the Palestine Liberation Organization and should only be questioned by that organization."
Sudanese Vice President Mohammed Bakir said after questioning the six: "They relied on radio messages from Beirut Fatah headquarters, both for the order to kill the three diplomats and for their own surrender Sunday morning."
Over the years, there have been reports the Israelis also had tapes of Arafat ordering the executions, and that Jerusalem provided copies to President Nixon.
Sources in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office told WND Israeli intelligence provided evidence proving Arafat's culpability in the murders to the U.S. State Department and White House in March 1973. Sharon also publicly stated in 1995 that Israel shared this evidence with the U.S.
In 1985 and 1986, Congress requested then-Attorney General Ed Meese to investigate Arafat's complicity in the murders of the diplomats.
On Feb. 12, 1986, some 47 U.S. senators, including Al Gore, petitioned Meese "to assign the highest priority to completing this review, and to issue an indictment of Yasser Arafat if the evidence so warrants."
But the one critical piece of evidence needed to warrant an indictment – the tape recordings – was not produced by the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency or the State Department.
Bill Carter, a spokesperson for the FBI in Washington, D.C., would neither confirm nor deny that the case has been reopened, but a source in the FBI's New York office told WND on condition of anonymity that an investigation has indeed been initiated at the request of an outside agency. He refused to name the agency.
If Arafat is charged with the murders, a warrant would be issued for his arrest, making him a fugitive in the U.S.
Raanan Gissin, chief spokesperson for Ariel Sharon, told WND, "This doesn't come as a surprise. We intercepted the phone calls, and the U.S. also corroborated this on their own."
"The Khartoum murders are very damning because it is one incident where Arafat was actually caught red-handed. He is usually good at hiding his direct involvement in terrorism," said Gissin.
Gissin says Israel was not involved in the opening of the case.
"This is an internal American affair based on internal considerations," he said.
Arafat deputy and chief negotiator Saeeb Erakat, who was first informed about the FBI investigation by WND, said, "President Arafat was not involved in these murders. He visited Washington more than 24 times since the Khartoum events! This is just part of the political campaign being waged against President Arafat."
Welsh charges the U.S. has always known about Arafat's culpability in the murders, but that the American and Israeli decision to build Arafat as the legitimate ruler of the Palestinians and a figurehead with whom Israel could ultimately negotiate has forced the U.S. to cover up the incident.
Welsh says that when he watched President Bill Clinton invite Arafat to the White House for negotiations in 1993, and later host the PLO ruler at a 2000 peace summit at Camp David, he was compelled to speak out after so many years of silence.
In an exclusive interview with WND in 2001, Welsh talked for the first time about what happened when he was at the NSA, but the FBI did not respond back then.
"No one wants to touch this thing," Welsh said at the time. "It's a hot potato. No one wants to be responsible for derailing the Mideast peace process."
After Arafat turned down at Camp David an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and the eastern section of Jerusalem, and instead launched an intifada against the Jewish state, the domestic and international tide of public opinion has turned against the PLO ruler, and Welsh says the U.S. is "finally interested in making the truth about this man known."
"It is wonderful news that the U.S. government appears now to be taking seriously the charge that Arafat was complicit in the murder of two American diplomats," Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum told WND. "And it is testimony to President Bush's understanding that terrorism must be combated in all theaters. But the three-decade-long delay in bringing Arafat to accountability also shows the high costs of engaging in diplomacy with terrorists."
Although Sharon and Bush have isolated Arafat in his Ramallah compound for three years, and most countries refuse to meet him, the PLO leader has maintained a tight grip on Palestinian security forces, and Israel charges that Arafat is still calling the shots of various terror organizations, including his own Fatah.
Gissin says the FBI case will help to further isolate Arafat.
"Arafat's involvement in this murder is a fact. The case will serve to further tighten the isolation of Arafat by making him a fugitive in the U.S. This should be highly embarrassing to him. Not only is Arafat corrupt, but as we've always known, he is also a cold-blooded murderer."
I feel very sorry for the person that has to probe Arafat.
What an F..ing outrage. I don't know who I am more pissed with. Arafat, the NSA, Ed Meese, the retired CIA agent who was holding this crucial info, the FBI who recently took it,only to bury it, no doubt. I read stuff like this and I think we already live in a police state.
Maybe Israel can do the probing for us --- with an anti-tank missile.
Sounds like a plan!!
I guess we are getting ready to greenlight the execution of arafat.
Arafat has been a committed terrorist since before 1948. The idea that we now wonder if he's been involved in an assassination is almost proposterous. He should have been taken out over fifty years ago.
When I say almost, the fact is that the man should face justice. He could be taken out, but I think it would be better to indict, convict, and watch him waste away a broken man. If anyone deserves that fate, Yasser Arafat does.
Yasser Arafat has almost single-handedly manipulated the fate of the Palestinians, for nearly three generations. Had he accepted the 1948 United Nations mandate, the Palestinians would have spent the last 55 years in peace and prosperity.
Yasser Arafat was the one enduring obsticle to that taking place. He is responsible for countless deaths in Israel. He is responsible for even more amongst his own people.
What a misserable wretch.
We finally have a president who has the balls to go after the terrorist who murdered those diplomats.
Covering for Arafat the Killer
CIA has tape of Arafat Ordering the Murder of Two American Diplomats
WorldNetDaily: Will real Arafat be exposed?
USCFL - Frequently Asked Questions
THE CONTRIVED MYTHS: of SABRA & SHATILLA; WAR IN LEBANON;
Jenin: The Big Lie
By Ariel Cohen - National Review Online
Arafat's past comes back to haunt him
FYI
BTTT for later thorough digestion...
You got a point there.
What peace process?! Arafat doesn't want peace. He wants Israel eradicated. When will our elected officials admit this simple fact?
Better late than never, I guess.
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Talk about a "Cold Case" File! It's only 31 years overdue, why the hurry?
I thought that the strategy with Arafat was to let Palestinian fratricide take its course and allow him to shrink into political impotency, in the belief that such a fate would be considered worse among his followers than glorious matrydom. What else explains why Israel did not finish him the time they surrounded his compound with tanks and started renovations to permit a lighter, more airy look for the structure?
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