Word: awad
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Awad soon learned that while the May 15 Organization was tiny, it had a global reach, with safe houses as far away as Bangkok. The group had pulled off bombings in London, Rome, Vienna, Antwerp, even Nairobi. Rashid bragged to Awad about blowing up the El Al airline office in Istanbul right under the nose of the Mossad, Israel's military intelligence agency. Afterward, he said, he had sneaked up behind an Israeli officer and stuck a note on his jacket making fun of the Mossad. Now Abu Ibrahim vowed to answer the Israeli invasion with a wave of bombings...
Rashid and Abu Ibrahim alternately cajoled and browbeat Awad into agreeing to blow up the Geneva Noga Hilton, which Abu Ibrahim said was owned by a Jew who he claimed sent a lot of money to Israel. Realizing he had got in over his head, Awad began avoiding Abu Ibrahim. Then one morning Awad went to his construction site at Baghdad's military airport and found that he and his 60 workers were locked out. The officer in charge said he had orders to shut down the job until Awad talked to Abu Ibrahim again...
...Awad felt he had no choice. He knew that the Iraqi government paid for May 15 members' rent and gasoline and provided Abu Ibrahim with documents, untraceable license plates and security guards. Now the May 15 chief had shown that with a word from him, the Iraqi military would bring Awad's business to a halt. Awad realized that he could not continue his life in Baghdad if he defied the bombmaker, and he headed for Abu Ibrahim's villa in the wealthy diplomatic quarter of southwest Baghdad. Abu Ibrahim welcomed the reluctant terrorist and personally trained...
...early August, Awad was ready. The day before he left for Geneva, he said goodbye to Rashid and Pinter. The couple was headed for the airport with their two-year-old son on a terrorist mission of their own: it turned out to be the bombing of the Pan Am flight to Hawaii. "We'll all meet back in Baghdad in three weeks," said a confident Rashid...
...prediction was wrong. Awad's desperate journey would end in a Geneva hotel room when he found himself talking aloud to a bomb in his suitcase. Torn between fear of Abu Ibrahim and horror at the idea of killing innocent people, Awad prayed that the bomb would explode then and there, taking him with it. The next morning he decided to go to the authorities...