Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  Week five covered Combat Survival; she would learn how to escape from a moving car, belly-crawl beneath barbed wire fences while under live gunfire and attack, evasion and escape techniques. Week six would be lectures from interrogators and former POWs who had survived enemy torture camps. Week seven would be practical application and would include twenty-four hours of intense interrogation while blindfolded and tied. When this was completed the trainees would rest and their final weeks would be summary and foreign language training.

  The instructor then commented that they were not expected to fail, this was their destiny. Their comrades would support them. They could function as a team and alone. “You are,” he said, “Symbiots!”

  It’s him! It has to be! What the hell is going on? Which side is he on, she thought to herself. He left the outdoor podium, as did the others and Emily followed him into the building, wondering how he had managed to do this without their knowing his true identity. She was behind him in the hallway. He paused, took off his jacket, removed his keffiah, looked directly at her and smiled. She was absolutely right; the instructor was indeed Tony Shallal.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  “Ms. Desai, I believe.” He stared directly at her, willing her to keep in role.

  “Sir. I just wanted to tell you how I enjoyed your class sir,” Emily continued playing the part, “Sir, have we met before?”

  He glowered. What the hell was she thinking? No one knew that they had an established relationship. No one except Mustafa Jalil, and he would not betray them, not if his life depended on it...which in fact it did!

  “I think we met at a British Embassy function in Cairo,” she went on, wanting to clear the air in case someone had actually figured it out.

  “Yes, perhaps you are right. I’m glad at least we have nothing to hide, and that you too share the same political aspirations for Palestine. If you will excuse me now I must prepare my part of this course for this afternoon.”

  “One more thing sir. Thanks for the food yesterday.”

  “Bread is the staff of life as they say, Ms. Desai. However, I do not for one moment believe that any association with the German contingent will enhance either your reputation or your circle of friends. They are manipulators and do not share our beliefs. I advise you to put all of the skills you learn here into self preservation. Good afternoon.” And he walked quickly away, moving down the roughly constructed hallway where a group of men in field uniform where waiting for him.

  Alone in the dorm after her brief food break, Emily pondered what lay ahead. If she survived the training at all, and her chances were marginal at best, she would be assigned somewhere where her skills could best help the cause of liberating Palestine. She would for all intents and purposes be, as the Americans put it, without official cover or sanction. Emily was not a British agent. She was not prepared for this. It was coercion. If she refused to go any further she would probably face some sort of trumped up criminal charges. But what had she actually done? She had been a student with a part-time job and well-connected relatives in Britain. She had married a man she loved, also from a privileged, even diplomatic background yet from a completely different society. She had been on the receiving end of a massive culture clash and she was the mother of a new-born child who, although hardly languishing in Cairo with her aunt, must miss her. Emily had not seen her son for six weeks. And here she was about to be trained in combat in order that she get information for the bloody British to share with the Yanks about the greatest threat to their wealth and acquisition…terrorism in the West. “I must be out of my fucking mind!” she said out loud.

  “You probably are, my dear.” It was Leila Khaled, with the inevitable and wholly capitalistic Rothman’s King-size cigarette drooping from her lip.

  “Where do you get those foul things from?”

  “I think one would call it a trade agreement. Sometimes they’re stolen from trucks crossing Europe. Sometimes they just appear, courtesy of wealthy Arabs making necessary donations. We get field uniforms, U.S. Army boots and any British, Greek, American or French product you can think of, from tampons to olive oil soap. Oil is now big business. The West wants our oil, so it shuts its eyes to drug trafficking, arms trading, porous borders and smuggling anything anywhere.”

  “Western governments know about this?”

  “Of course, Amina. It’s like a tithe, or Zakat. The word means “increase” or “purify”. It is written that whoever pays Zakat on his wealth will have evil removed from him. It is good money being put to good use.”

  “Sounds like money-laundering to me, Leila.”

  “Some of our friends cannot give money so they give part of their possessions or their business, something they have had to work for. But it is given freely to help the cause and to foster good will among us.”

  “Yes, I get the point. It still boggles the mind how we legitimize it.”

  “Amina, you are helping the cause just by being here. If you do nothing with your training you can go back and tell the world why we exist and why we must fight. Some people would call that tithing for life in a spiritual way.”

  “We have few luxuries here anyway so it’s ok, you mean?”

  “Oh Amina. Compared to all of the other training camps this is the Ritz Carlton.”

  “So what you are saying is a number of wealthy Arabs donate to this as they would make Zakat thereby ensuring that they are in compliance with the Holy Qu’ran.”

  “Zakat is Zakat. But it is written, ‘The alms are only for the poor and needy, and those who collect them, and those whose hearts are to be reconciled, to free the captives and debtors, and for the cause of Allah, and for the wayfarers; a duty imposed by Allah. Allah is all knowing and wise’ Zakat is obligatory, my dear Amina Desai” Leila Khaled continued in a dull monotone “When a certain amount of money called the Nishab is reached, it is usually paid in gold and silver. Muslims calculate their own payment. It is usually 2½ per cent of one’s capital. A pious person should give as much as they please; it is more than voluntary charity. If you cannot give financially you are expected to give something to those who are in need. ‘If you have nothing,’ the Prophet has said, ‘then you should stop yourself from doing evil.’ It is, Amina, arguable that supporting the disenfranchised people of Palestine financially is a charity. Ensuring that they remain alive, educated, clothed, fed, and well-housed, teaching them to rebuild their lives and their country while walking in the light of Allah is an honor. The Prophet has said ‘Charity is a necessity for every Muslim.’”

  “O my people! I ask of you no reward for this. My reward is from none but Him who created me. Will ye not then understand?” Amina responded with a quotation from the Holy Qu’ran.

  “I am glad you have studied the words of the Prophet.” And with that, Leila led Amina back to the training ground.

  For the next four weeks, Emily Desai was pummeled into shape. She ran, trekked, rode and was hurled out of vehicles. She was battered, bruised, kicked, blindfolded, trussed like a sacrificial lamb, sexually harassed and assaulted in the attempts to simulate what could await her if she was ever captured. She re-learned basic chemistry, made rubber stamps out of potatoes, forged Western documentation with stolen samples from the largest supplier of world forgery – Mossad. She changed her style of handwriting to forge signatures, learned about Islamic financial networks where cash ruled and no bank dealing with dollars could be trusted. She acquired new language skills, adding rudimentary Russian to her resume. She mastered first aid, combat surgery and overcame her fear of camel-spiders, which did not, as she had been told, devour human limbs after they had anesthetized one’s flesh. But best of all was the live theatre; disguise, make-up techniques, hair styling, dress, posture changes and method acting.

  Small arms experts trained her in pistol handling, the use of Kalashnikov Rifles and RPGs. She became more than proficient, but her upper arm strength was always a disappointment. She loathed the sense of failure as she lagged behind the others
climbing “The Wall”, but felt a sense of dignity and pride as she marched while chanting the honor of her “fighting unit” asifa;

  “To the left, asifa”

  “To the right, asifa”

  “To the front, asifa”

  “At the rear, asifa”

  Emily jogged around the training camp with the unit leader screaming the questions while the joggers rhythmically responded;

  “It has been told…”

  “What?”

  “That we are the fayadeen.”

  “What fayadeen?”

  “The faydeen of asifa.”

  “What asifa?”

  “The asifa of revolution.”

  “What revolution?”

  “The revolution of return.”

  “What return?”

  “The return to Gaza, Jaffa and Haifa.”

  She emerged in bloody, sweaty triumph from underneath the barbed wire fence with rounds of live ammunition shattering the ground all around her, carrying her Kalashnikov high over her head, her black combat uniform with her knitted Balaclava hat covering everything but her sand filled eyes. Around her, male and female comrades-in-arms screamed, firing rifles in the air, their traditional Arabic trill rising slowly, then gathering speed until it was a deafening roar of salute from the crowd. Emily Desai had entered this camp, but it was Amina Desai who emerged with blood staining her arms and legs from the barbed wire cuts, her English heritage seemingly lost forever!

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Leila Khaled left the camp several weeks before Emily completed her training. Khaled told her they would meet in a few weeks and at that point she would be given her first assignment. Emily heard through Mustafa Jalil that her mentor had returned to the American University campus in Beirut to await instructions. In a few days, unknown at that time to Emily, Leila Khaled would travel to Germany and on to Holland, where she would make contact with a young, handsome Nicaraguan named Patrick Arguello. Emily heard from other trainees that another hijacking would take place within a week, that Leila would lead the attack and that it would take place on an El-Al flight.

  Emily wasted no time in getting the information to Mustafa who was the intermediary for Tony Shallal. His return instructions had been to prepare to leave and that no matter what happened she would be completely exonerated of all wrongdoing by the authorities involved. Follow the plans, he instructed her, reiterating strongly, all of them! He promised that at the end of this she could live comfortably anywhere in the world with her son away from all harm.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Emily packed what little personal effects that she had. She said goodbye to the few people she had become close to. Out of sheer derisiveness she walked over to the cabin where the German RAF members lived and hugged Ulrike Meinhof warmly, telling her they would no doubt meet again in Germany, ignoring Gudrun Ensslin who was also packing her bags. Ensslin would join Andreas Baader who had been removed, allegedly much against his will, from the compound in early August and she, along with Meinhof would take their place in history.

  It was Gudrun Ensslin and not Ulrike Meinhof who was the power behind the newly reformed Baader-Meinhof Gang. Now known as the Rote Armee Faktion, this abhorrent left wing cocktail of misused Marxism, Maoist ideology and shock value had not changed. Their emergence from middle-class student protesters committed to the struggle of the working class would soon, however, progress to full scale urban guerilla warfare. The “people” would, whether they liked it or not, receive massive doses of Marighella and Fanon rhetoric neatly packaged and financed by the Soviets as well as by outside terrorist groups. Ultimately this lethal combination would be used against its own membership as well as dissenters. Targets of demand, the object for which their terrorist acts served as a calling card, would be attained and the day would come when government officials, military commanders, chancellors and presidents would be destabilized. But in 1970, Andreas Baader and friends were on the run, fast becoming romantic heroes and their grassroots movement had succeeded. Their supporters and cell groups were fully operative and their greatest asset was that terrorism could be a highly effective tool when properly implemented. Terrorism was easier to utilize than full scale war. Its effects could be attained at low cost, producing high financial and political rewards while remaining relatively low-risk and there was always the attainment of a place in history as an added bonus. Nations had been built upon it! The example of the State of Israel was firmly embedded in the psyche of both Ensslin and Meinhof, who firmly believed and frequently remarked, ‘If the Jews could do it, we certainly can improve on it.”

  The working class of the Bundesrepbublik would be subjected to a new and revamped version of the Marighella tome, now entitled “Destroy the Islands of Wealth in the Third World”, which was freely distributed in every local guest house and handed out on street corners to anyone who would take it. The workers they tried so hard to represent often rejected, insulted and found humor in their diatribes. In the autumn of 1970 the laughter had not yet turned to tears, and while Germany’s most notorious terrorists were hardly a force to be reckoned with they were most undoubtedly heard.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  The student body of The American University in Beirut was in crisis. Students were being forced to take sides. One of the primary reasons was the brutal slaying in Jordan of Major Robert J. Perry, the assistant U.S. Army attaché, who was murdered in June that year. Many believed Perry’s slaying was the handiwork of the PFLP, working on orders of Yasser Arafat. The unfortunate Perry was gunned down by a group of Palestinian fedayeen firing through the door of his home in full view of his terrified wife and children.

  Thus began the most perilous of times and in the days following Perry’s gruesome slaying, homes of other American civilians in Jordan were plundered, their vehicles hijacked and it was reported that several American women were raped and a U.S. ambassador was abducted. The polarization of the students was unfortunately not solely due to brutal murder of the young major. This heinous act itself was secondary to the glamour and notoriety of claiming responsibility for it. The riots followed soon after.

  Jordan’s young king, Hussein bin Talal, ordered special troops into the city while surrounding the outskirts with his well-trained Third Armored Division. On June 9th, Hussein’s own motorcade was attacked by Palestinian fedayeen gunfire. Participation in this assassination attempt was strongly denied by the PLO contingent based in Cairo. The terrorists and Jordan’s army continued their fight. Groups of civilians mobbed the U.S. Embassy but were held back by Hussein’s armed forces. Provoked by the clash, radio broadcasts by Egypt’s al-Fatah proclaimed the quashing of the mob by the Jordan military a “monstrous massacre on behalf of the United States.” All Arabs were asked to band together to destroy the Jordanian Royal Family, the government and the United States’ “Fortress” in the Arab world.

  The General Command of the PFLP had maintained that the terrorists were willing to negotiate if the Jordanian Army would withdraw from Amman. They requested that those responsible for the attacks be arrested and tried and that the Special Forces employed by the government to fight guerillas be demobilized. At the same time they had seized two Amman hotels and thirty-two American, British and West German civilian hostages. Hussein, with the interests of keeping the hostages alive, surrendered to their demands and Yasser Arafat, self-proclaimed Commander in Chief of the Palestine Revolution won the day! Terrorists in Jordan began issuing press releases and were hailed as the foundation for the “people’s revolution” by the media worldwide.

  By September, both Egypt and Jordan accepted a peace initiative set by the United States centered around a cease fire along the Suez Canal and the River Jordan. PFLP leader George Habash, known as “al-Hakim” led the way by purchasing arms to continue the struggle. Habash issued the warning, “If a settlement is made with Israel, we will turn the Middle-East into a hell.” His strategy was already developed and centered around attacks on international
flights to New York which took place only on weekends, when he could be assured that vacationing Americans would be susceptible.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Anti-American sentiment spread quickly to from Amman to Beirut and it festered in “Guerilla University”, the popular name for American University. The Palestinians were in the forefront of publicity and other Arab students began to resent their presence. In the last few years students had been united on the surface in their ideology of a United Arab Front to free and rebuild Palestine and the Lebanese student leftist factions had worked loosely with Druze, Sunni and Maronite Christians to recreate the golden days of Islam. But when the revolutionary mosquito bit them all and passed on the disease of radical politics, even Greek Orthodox students created their own agenda, becoming angry and resentful when they were not receiving their fair share of revolutionary acclaim. More cognizant of their own weak positions were the socially downtrodden Armenians who stayed out of the furor, and the Shiite student community whom everyone usually tried to ignore. It was evident, however that their turn within the confines of social unrest would indeed come.

  Beirut had become the center of left wing activism. By the end of the seventies it would rival London, Paris, and Rome for its nightlife and decadence, but at this point in time it was a hub of social revolution and the university campus was the focal point for radical activity. Its walls bore gigantic reprints, black and white glossies of the bodies of Israeli soldiers slaughtered at al-Karama in 1968. Full size posters of Che Guevara and Mao Tse-tung, amid photos of the beleaguered faces of Palestinian martyrs were posted to the wall daily by female students, wailing as they removed the old to make room for the new. Some of the girls were now heroines to the cause, no longer content simply to chant, “My brothers and sisters shall see the sea,” a reference to the removal of the State of Israel. These fighting women as the Palestinians and all Muslims of their generation would march triumphantly together toward the Mediterranean coast and one of them was Leila Khaled.