Salah Halaf Abu Ayyad, a 42-year-old Jaffa-born teacher, reputedly the No. 2 man in El Fatah, was identified by informed sources here today as the “mastermind” of the terrorist atrocities committed by the Black September group, an El Fatah offshoot. The Black Septembrists were responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich last week and other recent outrages.
The Israeli sources said he worked for some time as a teacher in Kuwait and later joined Yasser Arafat in organizing El Fatah, the largest of the Palestinian terrorist organizations. During the Sept. 1970 clashes in Jordan, Ayyad was captured by the Jordanian Army but released after he signed a terrorist cease-fire order. He then went to Beirut where he resumed his activities. The sources said his name has not appeared in terrorist news bulletins recently, indicating that he has gone underground for conspiracy purposes.
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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.
