Palestinian Arab guerrilla leader Yasir Arafat announced today in Cairo that French and Dutch volunteers have joined his forces to fight Israel. Arafat heads the El Fatah and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrilla organizations. He said that the Europeans joined El Fatah, which also includes Arabs from Egypt. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. Arafat announced the presence of non-Arabs in his forces shortly before conferring with Jordanian Premier Bahjat al-Talhouni.
The Jordanian official was reportedly in Cairo to confer with Egyptian leaders on announced plans to transfer some 4,000 PLO regulars now in Egypt to Jordan. The move was announced in Cairo apparently without King Hussein’s assent.
President Nasser has thrown full support behind the Palestine Executive Committee established last week at a meeting of the Palestine National Council with the aim of unifying terrorist activities. The Palestine Liberation Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine boycotted the meeting. The Army is one of the most important and strongest terrorist groups and is the military arm of the PLO, a political body which attended the Cairo sessions and whose ruling body is the Palestine Executive Committee. The Palestine National Council claims to represent the various Palestinian Arab terrorist and political groups and has 105 members, headed by Yehia Hammouda. Hammouda announced after the Council meeting that a five-member team would try to bring the two dissident groups back into the Executive Committee.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
