The Way Things Were
The Way Things Were... The anchored missile boat rocked slowly in the black waters of the Mediterranean, as the mission commander scanned the Tunisian coastline through high-powered field...
...The beaches around Tunis were secluded at night, especially the landing zone at Ras Carthage Beach, which had been selected by a team of Mossad agents...
...The operators moved quickly and silently through the ornate home, racing up a marble stairway in rubber-soled boots...
...They entered Abu Jihad's bedroom, and found the commander asleep, next to his wife, known as Umm Jihad...
...According to published accounts, the entire operation was videotaped...
...The anchored missile boat rocked slowly in the black waters of the Mediterranean, as the mission commander scanned the Tunisian coastline through high-powered field glasses...
...Hovering some 40,000 feet abo« Tunis, an Israel Air Force Boeing 707 electronic countermeasure aircraft was monitoring and jamming the radio and telephone frequencies used by Tunisian security forces...
...The boafs crew tossed several inflatable boats %ljjf **> the dark, curling waves and lowered themselves one by one, carrying night-vision gear, equipment packs, and weapons...
...To this day, Israel has not claimed responsibility—SK...
...The assault, teams, along with their intelligence support force, were quickly secreted out of Tunis—long before the befuddled Tunisian security apparatus knew what had happened...
...The commandos went to work, pouncing from their vans and immediately cutting down several Palestinian and Tunisian guards with silenced gunfire...
...at Abu Jihad's villa, agents looking up at the second- floor bedroom window saw that the lights were off...
...They were headed toward the posh villas of the exclusive Siddi Bouseid section, a favorite of the PLO leadership living in post-Lebanon exile...
...A terrorist field marshal, Abu Jihad's signature was on dozens of Fatah operations that had, from 1973 to 1988, resulted in hundreds of Israeli dead and scores wounded...
...He was killed in a hail of some 70 bullets (his wife was not...
...The iron gates protecting the home were blown off their hinges...
...At just after midnight on April 16,1988, the commandos coming in from the sea hooked up with a team of Mossad agents waiting on the beach, and together disappeared into the testing, blaring, traffic in downtown Tunis...
...Arriving at 2:30 a.m...
...The Israeli mission: assassinate Khalil af-Wazir, the PLO military commander known to the world by his nom de guerre, Abu Jihad...
Vol. 26 • October 2001 • No. 5
