Word: rashid
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Awad's involvement with Rashid began in Baghdad. A former captain in the Syrian army, Awad had knocked around the Persian Gulf for a few years before he and one of his brothers settled down in Iraq. By 1982 he had his own construction firm and a lucrative contract to lay foundations for a string of warehouses at Baghdad's military airport. Early that year he met a handsome 30-year-old expatriate from Jerusalem named Mohammed Rashid. Awad knew Rashid was with the fedayeen -- freedom fighters -- but that was not unusual among Palestinians. Awad would go on picnics with...
...Rashid introduced Awad to someone new: a short, tough-looking, energetic man with the strong, deep voice of someone used to giving orders. It was Rashid's boss -- Abu Ibrahim, also known as Husayn al-Umari, the 46-year- old chief of the May 15 Organization. The date was June 6, 1982 -- the very day Israel invaded Lebanon. That afternoon as the expatriates sat in Rashid's living room watching the bloody assault unfold on television, Abu Ibrahim turned to Awad and asked angrily whether Palestinians like him were willing to help their country or only cared about making money...
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...
...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...