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Force 17 |
| Force 17 was formed in the early 1970’s by senior Al-Fatah officers,
shortly after the PLO’s expulsion from Jordan. There are a variety of
different explanations of how the unit got its name. One version claims that
the numbers 1,7 were the last digits of the private phone number of the
unit’s first commander. According to another version, the name derives from
the location of the unit’s office in Beirut: 17 Faqahani street.
Force 17 has been involved in terrorism since the early 1980’s, and has carried out attacks against both Israeli and rival Palestinian targets in the Middle East and Europe. As a result of the Oslo Agreements between Israel and the PLO, Force 17 was to have been merged into the PA security forces. In reality, Arafat kept the unit apart from the official Palestinian forces, and today it acts under his authority alone. |
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Originally intended as a personal security force for Yasser Arafat and other PLO
leaders, Force 17 eventually became one of the PLO’s elite units and functioned
in various areas of operational activities under the direct guidance of Ararfat.
Among the unit’s functions was gathering intelligence, and the perpetration of
terror attacks against Israeli targets in the 1980’s. It also served Arafat as a
combat unit during Israel’s “Peace for Galilee” operation in Lebanon.
In August 1982, as a result of the Israeli attack on its headquarters, Force 17 along with the other PLO forces, left Lebanon for Tunisia. There, the unit set up shop near the central PLO headquarters.
Force 17 and the Oslo agreements
As a part of the Oslo Agreements, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) agreed to establish the General Security Service (GSS), officially known as the Palestinian Directorate of Police Force. The GSS is an umbrella organization nominally responsible for coordinating and maintaining most of the Palestinian Security bodies and services; it includes not only police but also intelligence organizations. The 1994 Cairo Agreement’s determined that the GSS would be the highest and only security authority in the Palestinian Authority.
Despite this, Arafat created two additional forces, outside the control of the GSS, and subject to the authority of the PA chairman alone. These forces are the Special Security Force (SSF) and Al-Amn Al-Ri’asah (Presidential security) unit. As part of the reorganization of the Palestinian security forces, Force 17 was merged with the Presidential Security unit, commanded by Faisal Abu Sharah.
Presidential Security force is a high-quality security paramilitary unit, estimated at 3,000 members, a majority of whom were once members of Force 17. The unit is responsible for Arafat’s personal security and operates under his direction, although, as originally defined in Oslo II, the unit was to have been part of the GSS. The protection of the chairman, as well as other political personalities and important installations, is the main objective of al-Amn al-Ri’asah, but in addition it handles counter-terrorism and is responsible for arresting opposition activists and suspects of collaboration with Israel.
Two subsidiary bodies of al-Amn al-Ri’asah are the Intelligence Unit, whose
main mission is information gathering about the activities of the opposition
movements and other domestic threats, and the Presidential Guard, Arafat’s most
loyal and trusted inner circle. This unit provides the tight security around
him, with the aim of preventing any assassination attempts. Although officially,
Force 17 disbanded when Arafat returned to Gaza, the background of most of the
officers in al-Amn al-Ri’asah leads most Palestinians to refer to this branch
simply as Force 17.
The unit’s first commander, Ali Hassan Salame, served for only a short time.
Salame was one of those who took a part in the massacre of the Israeli
delegation to the Olympic games in Munich in 1972. On 22 January 1979, he died
in the detonation of an explosive device placed under his car in Beirut, an act
attributed by the PLO to Israeli intelligence. Two other senior officers of
Force 17, Mahmoud Hamshari and Muhammed Budia were killed in Belgium and France,
respectively, in similar circumstances.
After Salame’s death, Colonel Mahmoud al Natour (Abu Tayeb), who had for many years been the personal bodyguard of Yasser Arafat, took command of Force 17.
In 1984, with the thawing of relations between the PLO and Jordan, some of
the senior officers of Force 17 resolved to form a new terrorist apparatus,
which would initiate terror activities from Jordan using Palestinian cells in
the West Bank. This apparatus was to operate alongside the “West Bank Sector” of
the PLO, run by Abu Jihad, which also operated from Jordan. The involvement of
Force 17 in terror operations in the West Bank was a source of rivalry and
tension between Abu Tayeb and Abu Jihad. This rivalry was skillfully manipulated
by Yasser Arafat to consolidate his own power.
From April 1984 onwards, Force 17 expanded its activities to Europe. The first
step was to build an extensive infrastructure of terrorist cells, weapon and
ammunition depots and safe houses in various countries. This activity was
brought to light in December 1984, when Romanian authorities found a huge cache
of arms—including AK-47 rifled, pistols and hand grenades—at the house of Force
17 member Abu Salim, in Bucharest.
On 25 September 1985, two Israelis were in the Marina of Larnaka in Cyprus. Two Palestinians and one British mercenary were arrested by the local authorities, and told interrogators that they were members of Force 17.
On the morning of 22 July 1987, Palestinian caricaturist Nagy El-Ali was shot on the steps of the Kuwaiti newspaper El-Kabas in Chelsea in U.K. He later died of his wounds. El-Ali was known for his political cartoons against the Palestinian leadership and against Arafat. As El-Ali was a British citizen, the local authorities invested great efforts in solving the murder. The investigation eventually led to the arrest of members of Force 17. A search of an apartment belonging to one of the men, Ismail Sawan, discovered weapons, hand grenades, and 145 kg. of Semtex plastic explosives.
In the late eighties another elite unit was formed by former members of Force 17: the “Hawari apparatus,” also known as the “Special Operations Apparatus.” The founder and leader of the new group was Colonel Abdallah Abd El Labib, who was also called Colonel Hawari.
The mission of the Hawari group was to serve as a clandestine operational wing of the Fatah dealing with terrorist activities in Europe. It was mean to be totally deniable: the PLO repudiated all connection to the “Hawari Apparatus,” although it operated under Yasser Arafat’s direct command. The Apparatus was involved in several terror activities in Europe in the late eighties:
Force 17 and the El-Aqsa Intifada
From the first days of the al-Aqsa Intifada, Force 17 had an active role in carrying out terrorist activities against Israel. While hiding behind the title of the Presidential Security, senior officers of the apparatus were involved in a number of terror operations:
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