Revolutionary Council

Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, one of the world's most wanted men, turned up in Algiers to take part in talks aimed at reuniting the PLO, Palestinian sources said Monday. Abu Nidal was in the Algerian capital over the weekend and met with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat's closest aides, including deputy PLO commander Khalil Wazir, the sources said.

Saying he could not endure the anguish of the trial, a Palestinian gunman declined to appear Monday before a court trying him for mass murder in the 1985 post-Christmas terrorist attack on Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Ibrahim Khaled, the sole survivor of the four-man suicide squad whose attack claimed 16 lives and left 80 other people wounded, exercised his right not to appear at the first substantive session of his trial.

Arab terrorists who attacked passengers last week at the Vienna airport's El Al airline counter intended to take Israeli hostages and hijack an El Al jetliner, a senior Austrian official said Monday. Interior Minister Karl Blecha also said called it "very likely" that the terrorists belonged to a group headed by Abu Nidal, a Palestinian extremist who split with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in the 1970s while accusing Arafat of being too moderate.

Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, one of the world's most wanted men, turned up in Algiers to take part in talks aimed at reuniting the PLO, Palestinian sources said Monday. Abu Nidal was in the Algerian capital over the weekend and met with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat's closest aides, including deputy PLO commander Khalil Wazir, the sources said.

The Palestinian guerrilla group headed by the elusive Abu Nidal says it will continue to attack Israeli and American interests with suicide commando raids, following what it termed a course of "martyrdom as a goal and a means." A rare communique from the group, the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, was handed to journalists in the Syrian capital by an official of the organization. Abu Nidal is the nom de guerre of the group's leader, Sabri Banna, whose whereabouts are not known.

Saying he could not endure the anguish of the trial, a Palestinian gunman declined to appear Monday before a court trying him for mass murder in the 1985 post-Christmas terrorist attack on Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Ibrahim Khaled, the sole survivor of the four-man suicide squad whose attack claimed 16 lives and left 80 other people wounded, exercised his right not to appear at the first substantive session of his trial.

The ruling Revolutionary Council in Iraq instituted a new law Thursday centralizing the collection of the Islamic alms tax for distribution to the needy.

Two weeks after seizing power in a coup, Capt. Blaise Compaore appointed himself head of state of the West African nation of Burkina Faso and made sweeping changes in the Cabinet. An official statement said Compaore, 35, also became president of the Popular Front, an umbrella organization set up during the Oct. 15 coup to replace the dissolved National Revolutionary Council.

An explosion wrecked a post used by Abu Nidal's Fatah Revolutionary Council in this south Lebanese city, killing two guerrillas. Security sources said the incident was the latest in a power struggle within the group. Tension is high between the FRC and a dissident wing backed by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization.

Egypt has rejected a request by Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi for arms, including submarines and missiles, the semi-official newspaper Al Ahram reported Friday. The newspaper said the request was conveyed by a Libyan army officer and member of the Libyan Revolutionary Council, Col. Abdel-Fatah Younis, who was in Cairo earlier this week.

The Palestinian guerrilla group headed by the elusive Abu Nidal says it will continue to attack Israeli and American interests with suicide commando raids, following what it termed a course of "martyrdom as a goal and a means." A rare communique from the group, the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, was handed to journalists in the Syrian capital by an official of the organization. Abu Nidal is the nom de guerre of the group's leader, Sabri Banna, whose whereabouts are not known.

Arab terrorists who attacked passengers last week at the Vienna airport's El Al airline counter intended to take Israeli hostages and hijack an El Al jetliner, a senior Austrian official said Monday. Interior Minister Karl Blecha also said called it "very likely" that the terrorists belonged to a group headed by Abu Nidal, a Palestinian extremist who split with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in the 1970s while accusing Arafat of being too moderate.