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PFLP-GC Founder Ahmed Jibril Laid to Rest in Syria

Ahmed Jibril attends the opening of the National Palestinian Meeting in Damascus, Syria January 23, 2008. (Getty Images)
Ahmed Jibril attends the opening of the National Palestinian Meeting in Damascus, Syria January 23, 2008. (Getty Images)
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PFLP-GC Founder Ahmed Jibril Laid to Rest in Syria

Ahmed Jibril attends the opening of the National Palestinian Meeting in Damascus, Syria January 23, 2008. (Getty Images)
Ahmed Jibril attends the opening of the National Palestinian Meeting in Damascus, Syria January 23, 2008. (Getty Images)

Hundreds of people attended on Friday the funeral of Ahmed Jibril, the leader of a breakaway Palestinian faction whose group carried out attacks in the 1970s and 1980s against Israeli targets was laid to rest in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Special funeral prayers were held for Jibril whose coffin was wrapped with a Palestinian flag at Damascus’ Al-Othman Mosque and was later taken for burial in the cemetery of the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, Syria’s largest.

Jibril was buried next to his son, Jihad, who was killed in an explosion in 2002 in Beirut, for which the group blamed Israel. Jihad Jibril was head of the PFLP-GC military wing at the time.

The funeral was attended by hundreds of Palestinian and Syrian supporters as well as officials of Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and other Damascus-based Palestinian factions.

Jibril, 83, died on Wednesday in a Damascus hospital after being sick for months.

The son of a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother, Jibril was born in Jaffa in 1938, in what was then British-ruled Palestine. His family later moved to Syria, where he became an officer in the Syrian army and acquired Syrian nationality.

“Commander Jibril was one of the founders of the contemporary Palestinian revolution and one of the leaders who made the contemporary Palestinian history,” said Samir Rifai, the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to Damascus.

Jibril founded the PFLP in the late 1950s but broke away over ideological disputes. In 1968, he founded the pro-Syrian breakaway PFLP-GC, which briefly joined the Palestine Liberation Organization, but left the umbrella group in 1974, amid sharp disagreements with PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Jibril was a vehement opponent of peace talks with Israel. His group became known for some of the more headline-grabbing attacks against Israel, including the hijacking an El Al jetliner in 1968 and machine gunning another at Zurich airport in 1969. In 1970, it planted a time-bomb on a Swissair jet that blew up on a flight from Zurich to Tel Aviv, killing all 47 on aboard.

The Damascus-based group also carried out attacks against Israel from its bases in Lebanon.

The group is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and other Western countries.

During Syria’s 10-year conflict, Jibril’s group supported Syrian government forces.

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Iraq Reiterates Need for Int’l Coalition Forces to Remain

A convoy of US forces seen on the border between Syria and Iraq. (Reuters file)
A convoy of US forces seen on the border between Syria and Iraq. (Reuters file)
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Iraq Reiterates Need for Int’l Coalition Forces to Remain

A convoy of US forces seen on the border between Syria and Iraq. (Reuters file)
A convoy of US forces seen on the border between Syria and Iraq. (Reuters file)

Iraq’s security and defense committee announced on Sunday that “the need still stands” for the US-led anti-ISIS international coalition to remain in the country.

It made its announcement days after Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbasi made similar remarks.

In televised statements, he stressed that the international troops were still needed in Syria, adding that “Iraq and Syria’s security are indivisible.”

Security and military coordination with the coalition continues, he said.

Baghdad has not received any official notice about the withdrawal of the forces from Syria or Iraq, he revealed.

Iraq had in 2024 held three rounds of dialogue with the United States about organizing the presence of the coalition after the completion of the pullout of remaining American forces.

Pro-Iran factions in Iraq, which had for years demanded the withdrawal, have so far not commented on the latest statements about the coalition.

Abbasi added that the American and coalition forces were necessary in Syria to maintain the fight against ISIS remnants, which continue to be a cross-border threat.

The US Defense Department recently said that American troop movement from northern and eastern Syria to more secure locations in Iraq was part of a calculated, safe and professional redeployment plan aimed at consolidating the successes against ISIS and cementing regional stability.

It does not mean the end of the coalition’s mission in Syria, it added.

A Pentagon official said local partners remain in the field in Syria and are an effective force against ISIS.

The US will continue to empower those partners in performing most of their remaining counter-terrorism duties, including guarding ISIS detainees, he went on to say.

ISIS is seeking to exploit any instability in the area, but the US efforts to deter its resurgence cannot be underestimated. The coalition remains committed to achieving the permanent defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, he vowed.

Member of the security and defense committee Yasser Iskander Watout said on Sunday that Iraq needs major logistic and aerial support since the means at its disposal were not enough to control borders with neighbors.

The continued deployment of the international coalition forces is “necessary and realistic”, he said.

The Interior Ministry and border and security forces have secured the border with Syria, but members of the committee said the need remains for aerial support to bolster stability in the area, he revealed.

Watout agreed with Abbasi on the need for the international forces to remain given that it boasts air forces that have effectively secured Iraq’s skies.

He noted that recent government contracts for the purchase of 14 modern jets “were not enough to cover all our needs.”

The coalition currently has 2,500 forces deployed in Iraq to counter ISIS and offer Iraqi forces logistic support.

Pro-Iran factions that have long been opposed to the international troops have not commented on the recent statements on their continued deployment given the Israeli threats against Tehran and US President Donald Trump’s urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against carrying out attacks against the factions themselves.