About 150 students of the New Left, mostly from Western countries, have formed a sort of “international brigade” and are training with Arab guerrilla fighters at secret camps in Jordan for combat against Israel, Christian Science Monitor correspondent John K. Cooley reported from Beirut today. According to Mr. Cooley, their training is sponsored by El Fatah, the largest Palestinian commando group. “If El Fatah’s normal training cycle Is followed, the volunteers should be ready for combat missions by October,” Mr. Cooley wrote. He said that, according to informants, they include four Americans; 30 Britons, Including 10 girls; 20 Irish; 20 French; 10 West Germans; and eight Swedes. The remainder are from Holland. Italy, various Eastern European countries. Guyana, Guinea and India.
El Fatah spokesmen and Jordanian authorities deny the existence of the volunteers or their training camps but Mr. Cooley reported he had spoken to persons directly involved with them. (Mr. Cooley’s dispatch confirmed reports published in the London Telegraph and the New York Times last Sunday that young European leftists were training with the Palestinian guerrillas. According to the Times, most of them plan to return to Europe to organize anti-Israel activities ranging from boycotts of Jewish-owned firms to sabotage; the remainder will go on fighting missions with El Fatah, the Times said.)
Mr. Cooley observed that “this is the first-known instance since the first Palestinian war of 1948 that a number of European volunteers have received combat training to fight on the Arab side.” He said the reluctance of El Fatah to acknowledge their existence stems from the fact that the volunteers are militant leftists while El Fatah strives to remain apolitical and does not want to risk loss of the financial support it receives from such conservative Arab countries as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
“The volunteers, according to some of the Swedes involved…regard their adventure as an Important factor in the global ‘national liberation movement,” Mr. Cooley wrote. He said that Scandinavia has become a center of political and propaganda warfare between pro-Arab and pro-Israeli groups. “The first Scandinavian Palestine Committee was formed in 1967. Prominent in its work is Jan Myrdal, son of the Swedish economist and author Gunnar Myrdal” who is also a member of the Swedish-Chinese Friendship Society and an active supporter of the Viet Cong, according to Mr. Cooley.
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