Military

Terrorist Suicide Operation Analysis

 

CSC 1985

 

SUBJECT AREA General

 

 

 

 

 

I.  INTRODUCTION

 

    In the second half of the twentieth century terriorism has

 

become a critical issue all over the world.  It is no longer

 

limited to small and remote countries or to historically explosive

 

regions such as the Middle East.  Terrorism has managed to flourish

 

in almost every democracy in the world: the PLO in Lebanon and

 

Israel, the Corsican movement in France, Armenian terrorists in

 

Turkey and North America, the Provisional IRA in Ireland and Great

 

Britain, the Red Brigade in Italy, the Red Army in Japan, the

 

Baader-Meinhof Gang in West Germany, the Libyan state-sponsored

 

"death squads" in the Middle East and Europe, the Tupamoros in

 

Uruguay, and recently the Maoist Shining Path movement in Peru and

 

the Shiite fundamentalist groups in Iran and Lebanon.  Most of

 

these organizations have found it convenient to cooperate with each

 

other, forming what the author Claire Sterling has accurately

 

depicted as a "terror network."  These groups do not restrict their

 

operations to their original country or area and have spread a mesh

 

of terror over the entire world.  A quick glance at the map of

 

terror in the world shows that the groups concentrate on and appear

 

to cooperate to some extent on missions in democratic countries,

 

countries where public opinion has significant influence on

 

goverment policy.

 

    Terrorism has become a weapon by which the fear of masses of

 

innocent civilians exerts a pressure on the governments responsible

 

for their safety, a pressure which often forces unwilling

 

compromises with the terrorists and which yields them an indirect

 

but quite potent form of political power.  What motivates groups

 

towards terrorism?  We can classify terrorist groups as follows:

 

Nationalist motivations (e.g. the PLO), ideological motivations

 

(e.g. Marxist groups such as elements of the IRA and Maoist groups

 

such as the Shining Path), religious motivations (e.g. Shiite

 

funadmentalist groups), and motivations that extend the power of an

 

existing nation state (e.g. the Libyan "death squads").  Some

 

groups appear to have a narrow focus, such as the abortion clinic

 

shutdowns attempted by some pro-life groups in the U.S. or the

 

Shiite groups in Iran and Lebanon.  Other manifest several

 

tendencies at once such as the Marxists national liberation groups.

 

During a June, 1977, conference on international terrorism held in

 

France, Professor Dror of Israel's Hebrew University defined the

 

six trends that have assisted the growth of terrorism into a first

 

degree, strategic problem in the second half of the 20th century:

 

    1.  The rapid development and proliferation of all kinds of

 

weapons and the ability of terrorist organizations to acquire large

 

quantities of efficient and destructive devices.

 

    2.  The modern socio-technological system which has developed

 

and created numerous highly vulnerable targets such as

 

transportation nets, power grids, and dense concentrations of

 

populations.

 

    3.  The development of mass media which now permits terrorists

 

rapid and direct access into people's homes, allowing them free

 

advertising of their goals, grievances, and power.  In a sense, the

 

media have transformed many butchers into media stars, often

 

permitting greater media access to the Daniel Ortegas of the world

 

than to the Sister Theresas.

 

    4.  Modern transportation, especially aircraft, which serve as

 

a tool for rapid evacuation and mobility for the terrorists.  It

 

also permits the selection of targets which are diverse and widely

 

separated, allowing the PLO in Lebanon to hit targets such as the

 

Lod Airport massacre using Japanese Red Army terrorists flown in on

 

commercial jets.

 

    5.  Controversies and disagreements in the international system

 

which result in either active or passive support.  This is

 

especially troublesome with countries which behave as if they were

 

paranoid creations instead of national legal entities and who use

 

terrorists as tools for their political, ideological, or religious

 

goals.  Examples here include the Soviet Union, Libya, Syria, Cuba,

 

and Iran, who support avrious groups with funds, weapons, training

 

instructors and bases, and even diplomatic cover.

 

    6.  Finally, the Western emphasis on a tradition of political

 

liberalism and a sensitivity to human rights issues.  While

 

acknoledging the positive aspects of these traits, it must be

 

accepted that they place a great burden on Western nations' ability

 

to effectively counter terrorism.

 

    Terrorism, like any major sociological phenomenon, is a very

 

broad and complex subject.  In this research paper, I chose to deal

 

with two dimensions of terrorism found in the PLO: terrorist

 

training and suicide missions which spring from nationalist

 

motivations.  The concept of premeditated suicide training and

 

operations is strange and quite difficult for most individuals

 

brought up in a Western Free World culture.  For that purpose, I

 

will use an operation conducted by the "Fatah", a component of the

 

PLO, on 4-5 March 1975 in Tel-Aviv... the "Savoy operations."  The

 

goal of the analysis of this operation is to familiarize the reader

 

with this special type of terrorism so as to provide a better

 

understanding and knowledte of how to deal with this plague of

 

modern societies.  Knowledge such as this is a key ingredient to

 

success in military operations so it is perhaps fitting here that

 

we remember the words of a classic Chinese military thinker seen

 

through the pen of his modern day counterpart, Mao Tse-tung:

 

    "We must not belittle the saying in the book of Sun Wu Tzu, the

 

great military expert of ancient China, 'Know your enemy and know

 

yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.'"

 

    Each terrorist operation is different, unique due to the

 

familiar characteristics of battle and men.  Thus, one Fatah

 

mission will be somewhat different than another.  I have chosen a

 

"typical successive" suicide operations but again I must emphasize

 

that is only one example from Fatah and not necessarily typical of

 

other terrorist organizations.

 

    The analysis of this operation has been conducted from a

 

military perspective and the investigation was only looking at the

 

terrorist side of the operation.  In order to understand the

 

motivations of these terrorists, it is impossible to avoid touching

 

on some broader issues such as the political aspects of the PLO.  I

 

will attempt to avoid these issues, including the social psychology

 

of the Palestinians, to the extent possible.  These issues are

 

naturally a part of the operations mainly as they affect the morale

 

and motivation of the terrorists.  In this work of limited scope,

 

they will be dealt with as necessary.

 

    The first part of this research paper will describe the

 

training of the PLO: military, political, ideological, and

 

psychological.  I will examine this as a generic topic, without

 

tying it specifically to suicide type missions.  This will provide

 

the reader with some background on terrorism, the PLO as an

 

organization, and its people.  The second part of the paper will

 

analyze the specific operation which occurred on 4-5 March 1975 and

 

which was described by the Israeli State Radio as follows:

 

    "On the night of March 4th, 1975, at 11:00 PM eight terrorists

 

in two teams were landed by rubber boat on Tel-Aviv's beach.

 

Shooting and throwing grenades, they captured the Savoy Motel near

 

the center of the city, capturing the guests as hostages.  Early in

 

the morning of March 5th, an Israeli paratroop unit penetrated into

 

the motel, killing seven terrorists and capturing one.  Five

 

hostages were freed and five were killed by the terrorists.  A few

 

hours later the ship that transported the terrorists was captured

 

and its crew (including another terrorist commander) were taken as

 

prisoners."

 

II. THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO)

 

    Background of the PLO

 

    The PLO was founded during a convention in East Jerusalem in

 

May, 1964.  In June, 1964, the PLO declared its resolutions,

 

including the goal of the liberation of Palestine:  "Palestine is

 

an Arab homeland."  The so-called Palestinian problem stems from

 

1948 and the Israeli War of Independence when 600,000 Palestinian

 

refugees spread over the Arab World during the conflict with the

 

Arab countries.  Most of these refugees found temporary homes in

 

Jordan and Egypt.  The Fatah was also founded in 1964 and was

 

initially sponsored by Syria.  Fatah is the largest and most

 

influential group in the PLO.  Since February, 1969, Yasser Arafat

 

has served as the Head of the PLO.  See Figure 1 for a current PLO

 

Organizational Chart.

 

    Since its inception, the PLO has conducted its fight with

 

Israel using both political and military means and supported by all

 

of the Arab states.  The resulting guerrilla war with Israel peaked

 

in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon, and the Israeli Defense Forces

 

(IDF) destroyed the PLO's bases and forced them to be evacuated to

 

other Arab states.  The war between the Palestinians and the Jews

 

is not just the fighting of two nations over the same piece of land

 

but also involves a battle between two distince cultures.  The PLO

 

represents an oriental society with its traditions and habits.

 

Israel is basically a Western-style democratic society on a

 

socialist model.  This last sentence, emphasizing the cultural as

 

well as the national basis of the conflict, should be kept foremost

 

in the reader's mind as he/she follows the rest of this paper.

 

Click here to view image

 

TRAINING

 

    Terrorism as a form of political expression has no

 

meaning unless it is supported by physical and moral terrorism.

 

Throughout the century until the mid-1960's terrorists

 

believed that they had only to give a man a bomb or a revolver

 

and encourage him to throw it or fire it at "the enemy."  These

 

agents provocateur gave their agents no training in how or where

 

to use their weapons and it was not even considered essential

 

that they should know how they worked.  Fatah was the world's

 

first organization to embark upon systematic training for

 

terrorism and the other groups within the PLO soon followed.

 

From the military point of view, such training made good sense:

 

for terrorisim to thrive, it must be seen to be successful and

 

greater success could only come from efficient training.

 

    Training includes few different areas.  In this work, I

 

will deal with the following areas of training: military

 

trainings, political and ideological training, and psychologist

 

training.  Each area of training is completed with the other

 

ones and those all have the same final goal:  to build a

 

structure of military force in order to fight Israel.

 

Military Training:

 

    The early extensive training of Palestinians was

 

carried on in Algeria.  Later on, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon

 

became centers of training activity.  After the Jordanian

 

civil war on September 1970, training camps were moved out

 

of Jordan, mostly into Syria and Lebanon, which became the

 

major locus of training camps, supply depots, and repair

 

facilities.  In 1971, Libya began to fund and organize

 

training camps.  At the high point of PLO-Libyan relations

 

in early 1972, there were said to be as many as 8,000

 

commandos training in Libya.  Specialized training is given

 

in Algeria, Egypt, and Libya.  Palestinian frogmen are said

 

to have been trained in Ras Hilal near the Libyan-Egyptian

 

border since 1971.

 

    Selected trainees have been sent to the People's

 

Republic of China and Vietnam.  Palestinians are trained

 

also in Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait, Uganda, the Soviet Union, East

 

Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.  The

 

training camps are usually in rear areas, often in

 

mountainous terrain and are kept as inconspicuous as

 

possible.  Installations usually consist of nothing more

 

than ordinary buildings or tents.

 

    The instructors are not always themselves terrorists.

 

Many come from regular army units and are specialists in the

 

use of explosives and booby traps, small arms, camouflage,

 

field survival, attacks against underwater targets, and in

 

assassination.  Secured from the armies of Libya, Algeria or

 

Syria, these men do a tour of duty in some terrorist camp

 

and then return home.  Other teachers are Palestinians who

 

have been specially trained as instructors in Arab

 

countries.  By 1976, progress in training had reached a

 

point where a "War College of the Palestinian Revolution"

 

was graduating officers to serve in the "al-Asifah forces."

 

    The Soviet Union and other eastern block countries,

 

especially East Germany, are training Palestinian

 

instructors and also sending selective men from special

 

units who visit terrorist camps to impart particular

 

knowledge about the recognition and killing of enemy

 

intelligence agents, for instance.  South Yemen has become a

 

major training center, mainly because its geographically

 

isolated position gives it a high degree of invulnerability

 

from attack and security from spies.  At any moment in South

 

Yemen, in the three camps at Hanf, Mukalla and Al-Gheidha,

 

about 700 Cubans, backed up by 1,500 Russians and 116 East

 

Germans, are training terrorists from all over the world.

 

    Trainees have included members of the German Red Army

 

faction and the South Moluccans of the Netherlands.  The

 

Egyptian magazine October reported on May 16, 1978:

 

      South Yemen has turned the island of Socotra

      into a stronghold for the Palestinian terror

      organizations and for terrorists from many

      countries.  Soviet experts are also operating

      on the Island.

 

    The Russians initiated their intensive training in

 

1978.  Hundreds of Palestinians were being given advanced

 

terrorist training in 40 top security schools, mostly in the

 

Moscow suburbs and also at Baku, Tash Kent and Odessa.  A

 

course is attended by up to 60 PLO trainees, drawn from the

 

various groups according to a quota system.  The routine is

 

well established.  Carrying doctored Jordanian, Iranian or

 

Lebanese passports, the recruits travel to Moscow, where

 

they are met by the Director of the PLO office.

 

    The first lectures are about the achievements of the

 

Bolshevik Revolution and the advantages of the Soviet

 

order.  After aptitude tests, those Palestinians considered

 

above average are transferred for special courses to KGB

 

schools, though they are not allowed to meet the

 

intelligence officers from Libya, Syria, Iraq and South

 

Yemen who are trained there.

 

    Between 1974 and 1979, at least 1,000 Palestinians had

 

been trained in the Soviet Union or other eastern block

 

countries.

 

    There is a description of a training camp at Sanprobal

 

near Simferapol on the Black Sea and it says:

 

    There for six months, the Palestinians--along with

activists from Libya, Iraq, South Yemen and Algeria--

are given an arduous course of study, including basic

military field exercises, communications techniques and

lectures in theory.  But at the heart of all this

instruction comes extensive 'engineering classes' . . .

The syllabus includes the following:

    Study of regular and electronic detonators

    Production of incendiary devices

    Preparation of an electrical charge by means of a

      detonation

    Study of exploding metals

    Crossing rivers by rubber or wooden boats

    Study of fuse types-detonating card red;

      instantaneous fuse red; safety fuse black

    Blowing up of vehicles, ammunition dumps, petrol

      tanks

    Preparation of anti-personnel minefields.

 

    In an Arab country, a typical camp contains from 100 to

 

150 recruits.  A Fatah camp in Syria, for example, had 120,

 

ranging in age from 17 to 25, with five military

 

instructors, a physical training instructor, and a political

 

commissar.  The rank and file of the recruits are made up

 

predominantly of peasants and members of the lower middle

 

class with the great majority coming from the refugee camps.

 

    A volunteer that is accepted is sent to a training camp

 

for a trial period of 20 days, during which his stability,

 

obedience, and capacity for self discipline are assessed.

 

About a third of the volunteers are said to fail.  Those who

 

pass go on to take the regular course, lasting two months,

 

as full fledged guerrilla terrorists.  Physical training

 

includes long distance running, jujitsu, and karate.

 

    Military training starts out with instruction in the

 

use of a variety of weapons, such as automatic rifles and

 

pistols, bazookas, rockets, mines, and "white weapons"

 

(daggers and bayonets).  Tactical training includes

 

simulated individual and group attacks on enemy

 

installations, ambushes, laying mines, crossing minefields,

 

crossing electronic fences, and hand-to-hand combat.

 

Seasoned recruits go through maneuvers with live ammunition,

 

and run over obstacle courses which include barriers of

 

flaming kerosene.  Night marches are often undertaken and

 

many hours are spent on guard duty.  Special attention is

 

given to familiarizing the recruits with use of the terrain,

 

which is often not well-suited for guerrilla operations,

 

except for mountainous areas.  Discipline in the camps is

 

strict; alcoholic drinks are prohibited and meals are

 

usually eaten standing up.  A man found asleep on guard duty

 

three times in a row is summarily discharged.  The typical

 

training schedule is as follows:

 

            4:00 A.M.      Reveille, a run, physical training

 

            4:45 A.M.      Breakfast

 

            5:15 A.M.  Wash, clean up camp

 

            7:30 A.M.       Assembly for discussion, day’s program

                        distribution of tasks

 

      9:30-10:00 A.M.      Free time

 

      10:00-12:00 Noon  Physical training, close combat

                        training, reading

 

      12:00-1:30 P.M.      Lunch

 

       1:30-3:00 P.M.       Free time, cleaning equipment, weapons

                        training, target practice

 

       3:00-5:00 P.M.      Political education

 

       5:00-6:00 P.M.      Free time

 

            6:00 P.M. Supper

 

       8:00-9:00 P.M.      First night watch begins, lights out

 

    In addition to the commando subjects, there are few

 

schools that have full size dummy aircraft for practicing

 

the art of hijacking.  Detailed plans of every type of

 

passenger aircraft are available from the PLO's central

 

intelligence department and the movement of cabin staff has

 

been studied and reported.

 

    Other subjects that are being taught in foreign

 

countries include photography, forgery, languages,

 

cryptography, oratory and disguise.

 

    Terrorists chosen for a raid against Israel in which

 

they have little chance of surviving are not of high

 

intellectual calibre.  Their training has been largely

 

military with a heavy emphasis on indoctrination, based on

 

the duty they owe to Islam.  Many leave on their mission

 

expecting to become "martyrs" and, therefore, to reach

 

paradise immediately after death at the hands of Israeli

 

soldiers.  Their main aim is to kill as many Israelis as

 

possible.  To this end, their training has been designed to

 

make them persist in the face of all the odds against them

 

and not to surrender.  Certain terrorist coups, such as the

 

raids and massacres of children at the towns Kiryat Shemona

 

and Maalot show that the training has been horrifyingly

 

successful.

 

    The PLO has neglected no aspect of training.  It

 

includes aviation in Syria.  Its major terrorist amphibious

 

training center is at Benghazi, Libya, which is far enough

 

from Israel to deter the Israelis from striking at it.  They

 

used to have an amphibious warfare school at Tyre, Southern

 

Lebanon, until the War in 1982.

 

    Training is so diverse and is taken so seriously that

 

the PLO in 1978 created an affiliate organization, the

 

Palestinian Administrative Development Institute (PADI) to

 

run management training courses.  Graduation ceremonies are

 

held and a high ranking PLO official always attends.  PASDI

 

is partly designed to give the PLO a respectable face in the

 

management-minded West and is an integral part of a master

 

plan which can only be seen as extraordinarly sophisticated.

 

Political Training

 

    In keeping with their ideological conceptions of

 

insurgent war, all commando groups provide some form of

 

political training.  The rationale behind this attitude is

 

expressed by a Fatah leader: "In a liberation movement,

 

political policy springs from the mouth of the rifle, and we

 

in Fatah are fighters in the political field as well as in

 

the military field.  Each of these fields serves and

 

complements the other with Fatah's general strategic plan.

 

Thus, we do not differentiate between political action and

 

military action, and to emphasize this we refrain from

 

sending to the armed resistance field any combatant unless

 

he passes through our political organization."

 

    The same leader said that Fatah's basic rule is that

 

its men "should first be politicians, and then fighters."