MIDDLE EAST: A Blacker September

As the blue and silver White House jet left the dusty airport of Khartoum, a Sudanese brass band played Auld Lang Syne, slowly and starkly so that it sounded almost like Taps. When the jet landed at chilly, wet Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., an Air Force band played The Star-Spangled Banner while cannons fired a 19-gun salute. Thus, with poignant ceremony, were the bodies of Ambassador Cleo A. Noel Jr. and Deputy Chief of Mission George Curtis Moore returned home last week.

Two days later the two American victims of the Black September massacre in Khartoum were buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Sadness over the ugly deaths of Noel, Moore and Belgian Diplomat Guy Eid was worldwide. But amid the sorrow there was some solace that with the coldblooded killings the Palestinian terrorist movement of Black September may have inflicted a serious wound on itself.

Since the shadowy Black September organization was born 2½ years ago, it has enjoyed the financial support of several major Arab nations and the moral support of many. Even after Black Septembrists killed eleven Israelis at the Munich Olympics last summer, countries such as Saudi Arabia and Libya continued to bankroll the movement. Indeed, the murderers of Munich were hailed as heroes in rabidly anti-Israel Arab capitals like Tripoli. But nobody seemed eager last week to honor the killers of Khartoum.

Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, who has recently been pressing a diplomatic campaign to enlist sympathy for the Arab viewpoint, remained pointedly silent. So did King Feisal of Saudi Arabia, once a noted financial contributor to the Palestinians. He could hardly have been pleased that the attack took place in the Saudi embassy and that the Saudi ambassador was one of the five hostages. Even Yasser Arafat, the leader of Al-Fatah, the largest Palestinian nationalist group, made a point of trying (some what unconvincingly) to dissociate his organization from Black September.

One Arab leader who reacted strongly to the Khartoum killings was King Hussein of Jordan. Among the killers’ key demands during their 60-hour occupation of the Saudi embassy was the release of 17 other Palestinian guerrillas who had been arrested in Jordan last month for plotting to overthrow Hussein’s regime. Among these 17 was the man they openly called “our leader,” Abu Daoud, one of Al-Fatah’s highest-ranking leaders. Hussein adamantly resisted the guerrillas’ demand, even though his own chargé d’affaires in Khartoum was the guerrillas’ fifth hostage. Last week, when the shooting stopped, Hussein retaliated by ordering the execution of 16 of the prisoners, including Daoud. Other Arab governments in turn protested Hussein’s severity, and so he stayed the executions.

Of all Arab leaders, the one most openly furious about the Khartoum massacre was Sudan’s President Jaafar Numeiry. In a bitter, bristling 45-minute speech over Sudanese radio and television, Numeiry swore that the eight Black Septembrists would be tried and punished for “a crime we will not forgive.” They had committed, he charged, “a criminal, rash action devoid of revolutionary spirit and bravery.”

In Arab robes instead of his customary military uniform, Numeiry damned the killers in terms designed to have maximum emotional impact on his people. Alluding to the Sudanese custom of slitting an animal’s throat when butchering it for a feast, he said that the commandos had “slaughtered their hostages like goats.” Then, he added, they had left their corpses “to rot” for more than one day (an insult to the Moslem practice of burying the dead within 24 hours). Sudanese law provides for capital punishment in first-degree murder cases, but Middle East observers think that heavy prison sentences are more likely.

Suspending all Palestinian activities in Sudan, Numeiry angrily asserted that Black September was indeed part of Al-Fatah. As proof, he charged the head of the Al-Fatah office in Khartoum with having masterminded the massacre. He said that the leader, Fawwaz Yassin, had left Khartoum for Tripoli on a Libyan airliner only hours before the attack on the Saudi embassy was launched. Detailed plans for the entire operation, in Yassin’s handwriting, were later found in his desk. Sample: “Tareq —Issue instructions strictly and violently to all those inside the hall in a strong voice…Khaled—Control the garden completely. Open fire if there is any resistance and watch the wall regarding the guard of the U.S. ambassador.” (In fact, Ambassador Noel had no bodyguard with him.)

The actual attack seemed to have been led by Yassin’s deputy, Abu Salem, who has also been a broadcaster on the Voice of Palestine, an Al-Fatah program on Sudanese radio. The other six guerrillas, carrying Jordanian passports, arrived in Khartoum on an Egyptian flight the day before the attack. Numeiry did not link the Egyptian government to the plot, but he implied that Libya, which had invited Yassin to Tripoli, might be connected.

In Washington last week, there were hopes that the horror of Khartoum might induce more Arab states to crack down on terrorist activities throughout the Middle East. As President Nixon put it: “The nation that compromises with the terrorists today could well be destroyed by the terrorists tomorrow.”