Previously classified Italian intelligence documents reveal suspected connections between Palestinian terrorist organizations and the Sicilian Mafia during the 1980s, including possible cooperation in weapons trafficking, narcotics smuggling, and explosives expertise, according to an investigation published Thursday by the Italian newspaper Il Giornale.
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The investigation, by journalist Giulia Sorrentino, draws on intelligence reports, judicial records, and historical documents describing networks extending from Lebanon and Syria to Sicily and Rome. The material also includes an intelligence warning about a possible terrorist attack against the US Embassy in Rome.
Drug trafficking and Palestinian terrorism
One of the central documents, dated November 9, 1983, contains information gathered by Italy’s Carabinieri, the country's military police force, concerning international drug trafficking and Palestinian terrorist operations.
According to the intelligence report, members of Sicilian Mafia networks associated with the Greco and Gambino families were operating in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, then under strong Syrian influence. The area reportedly contained narcotics-processing facilities near Baalbek.
The source alleged that six AK-47 assault rifles had reached Mafia associates and been used in attacks in Sicily. It also described a shipment of approximately 900 kilograms of morphine base reportedly sent from Lebanon toward the Sicilian city of Catania in October 1983.
The same intelligence material warned that Palestinian terrorist organizations might attack Western targets if the multinational military force stationed in Lebanon intervened against Palestinian positions. The source specifically reported knowledge of a planned attack against the American Embassy in Rome.
Sorrentino's investigation also revisits the July 29, 1983, assassination of Rocco Chinnici, an Italian magistrate who played a leading role in the campaign against organized crime.
Chinnici and three other people were killed when a car bomb containing approximately 75 kilograms of explosives detonated in Palermo. The attack's use of a remotely detonated explosive device resembled techniques employed by terrorist organizations during Lebanon's civil war.
Judicial records describe how Bou Chebel Ghassan, a Lebanese police informant, had provided information about contacts with Mafia figures and efforts to obtain weapons and morphine. Days before Chinnici's assassination, Ghassan reportedly described methods of killing investigators remotely, comparing them to those used by Palestinian terrorists in Lebanon.
No record that Palestinian operatives participated in assassinating Chinnici
Although the testimony raised questions about possible foreign connections, Italian judicial proceedings established Cosa Nostra's responsibility for Chinnici's murder. The records do not demonstrate that Palestinian operatives planned or participated in the assassination.
The investigation also revisits allegations published by Corriere della Sera on June 22, 1993. In a report from Beirut, correspondent Antonio Ferrari quoted Zeid Wehbe, a Palestine Liberation Organization representative, alleging that operatives associated with Abu Nidal had infiltrated Mafia networks.
According to those allegations, Abu Nidal's organization supplied expertise in explosives and sophisticated killing devices in exchange for assistance with criminal operations.
Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, led a Palestinian terrorist faction that broke with Yasser Arafat's PLO. His organization was responsible for attacks against Israeli, Jewish, Western, and Palestinian targets.
An Italian military intelligence report dated January 13, 1986, also described connections between Abu Nidal and circles associated with the family of Syrian President Hafez Assad. The document, identified through research by Italian historian Giordana Terracina, referred to the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.
The assessment followed the December 27, 1985, coordinated attacks against airports in Rome and Vienna by Abu Nidal's Palestinian terrorist organization. The assaults killed 16 civilians and injured approximately 120 others.
Sorrentino also cites an October 1990 memorandum attributed to Italian General Demetrio Cogliandro. The document raised allegations concerning Arab banks operating in Italy, financial transactions involving Middle Eastern governments, and funds allegedly reaching Italian organized crime groups for narcotics purchases.
The intelligence records became accessible through a broader Italian government initiative launched in 2014 to declassify historical documentation relating to terrorism and political violence.
The newly published investigation does not establish that Abu Nidal's organization maintained a formal operational alliance with Cosa Nostra or participated in Mafia assassinations. The allegations in the intelligence reports have not all been independently corroborated.
However, the documents demonstrate that Italian intelligence agencies were examining possible connections between Palestinian terrorism, organized crime, and Middle Eastern trafficking networks years before allegations of an Abu Nidal–Mafia partnership became public in 1993.