Bassam Abu Sharif

rdf:langString Bassam Abu Sharif

rdf:langString Bassam Abu Sharif (Arabic: بسام أبو شريف; born 1946 in Jerusalem) is a former senior adviser to Yasser Arafat and leading cadre of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He was previously a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). A Marxist and an admirer of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, Abu Sharif, then a member of the PFLP, was dubbed the "face of terror" by Time magazine for his role in the Dawson's Field hijackings in 1970, when the PFLP hijacked Pan Am, Swissair, and TWA flights and blew them up in the Jordanian desert, triggering King Hussein's expulsion of the PLO from Jordan, which became known as Black September. A fourth pair of hijackers on an El Al flight were overpowered by security guards and passengers.