Terror leader commits suicide - report

Palestinian terror mastermind Abu Nidal has committed suicide in his Baghdad apartment, Mideast media reported today.

The West Bank newspaper al-Ayam said the 65-year-old terror leader had apparently committed suicide.

The Gulf satellite TV network al-Jazeerah said it was believed Abu Nidal shot himself when an Iraqi force tried to arrest him.

Najah Abdel-Rahman, spokesman for the Palestinian office in Baghdad said he had not heard of the death of one the world’s most wanted terrorists .

Abu Nidal’s group, the Fatah Revolutionary Council, split form Yasser Arafat’s PLO in 1974 and has been responsible for many terror attacks, killing or injuring almost 900 people.

He was reported to have been arrested in Egypt in 1998 and held at a secret location. American experts on terrorism claimed in 1999 that he was living in Iraq under the protection of Saddam Hussein.

In December last year Abu Nidal was sentenced in his absence to death by a Jordanian court for planning the murder of a diplomat in 1994.