Assassin's Bomb Kills Arab Terrorist Leader

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BEIRUT (UPI) — An assassin's bomb Saturday took the life of Gassan Kanafani, a leader of the Arab guerrilla group that claimed “complete responsibility” for the May massacre at Israel's Lod International airport. An estimated 11 pounds of explosives literally blew Kanafani to pieces. His 14-year-old niece who was with him also was killed.

The blast was so powerful it split and partially melted Kanafani's handgun, scattered bits of metal and flesh over a wide area and left a foot-deep hole in a concrete parking lot.

KANAFANI was the official spokesman and a high-ranking leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which took “complete responsibility” for the attack at Lod airport that killed 27 civilians.

Shortly after the front announced that the three Japanese men who indiscriminately sprayed Lod airport with bullets and handgrenades were working under PFLP orders, the group's leaders disappeared from their usual Beirut haunts, apparently in fear of Israeli retaliation.

A statement by the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation organization (PLO) of which the front is a member, said: “The martyr-fighter and hero Gassan Kanafani, one of the leaders of the PFLP and an information expert in the Arab homeland, was martyred this morning as a result of a treacherous assassination incident.”

THE ORGANIZATION said the incident encouraged its members to “continue on the road of revolution until victory and liberation.” Kanafani was ranked fourth or fifth in the movement, according to sources close to the PFLP. He was married to a Dane, Anna, and had two young children — a boy and a girl.

They were not near the explosion, which took place in the ground floor parking lot directly under Kanafani's apartment in the Hazmieh suburb of Beirut. The girl who died, Lamice Fayez, was the daughter of Kanafani's sister and had been visiting the Kanafani's with her mother at the time.

THE PLO statement said “the fall of a leader will not stop the will of fighters but will only increase their capabilities to continue on the road of revolution until victory and liberation.” The Middle East news agency quoted police experts as saying 11 pounds of explosives and some plastic bombs were placed in the car and exploded when Kanafani switched on the engine.

How this transcription was made

Masthead not readable on the scan. The label on the slide read: [no masthead on clipping] — Single clipping, read at 4x-4.5x in three columns. No masthead, dateline rule or page number appears anywhere on the clipping, so the paper and date rest entirely on Maria's slide label. The clipping is cut immediately below the article; the standing head of an adjacent story, "W. German Terrorists", is visible at bottom left and is NOT part of this article.

Cite this clipping

"Assassin's Bomb Kills Arab Terrorist Leader," (newspaper unidentified), 9 July 1972. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1972-038. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1972-038