4 IN U.S. HELD AS TERRORISTS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 2, 1993                   TAG: 9304020157
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ST. LOUIS                                LENGTH: Medium
4 IN U.S. HELD AS TERRORISTS
Four alleged members of the Abu Nidal terrorist group have been charged in America's heartland with plotting to kill Jews and blow up an Israeli Embassy.
One of them fatally stabbed his daughter, shouting "Die, my daughter, die!" so she wouldn't reveal his secret, the FBI said.
That was a sharp difference from the motive offered by state prosecutors who convicted the father in 1991. They had said the killing had resulted from a clash of cultures between her fundamentalist Muslim parents and the Westernized girl, 16-year-old Palestinian "Tina" Isa.
The indictments unsealed Thursday are believed to be the first of suspected Abu Nidal members in the United States, said FBI Agent James W. Nelson.
The Abu Nidal organization, which broke away from the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1973, was described by a State Department report in 1989 as the world's most dangerous terrorist group. Abu Nidal was the name taken by the group's leader, Sabry al-Banna.
Among the group's acts, the report said, was the killing of 21 people in the bombing of an Istanbul, Turkey, synagogue in 1986.
"The stated purpose of Abu Nidal is to kill Jews anywhere and everywhere," Nelson said.
The indictments accused the four of running a racketeering enterprise that included the 16-year-old girl's death and conspiring to kill Jews, blow up the Israeli Embassy in Washington and buy weapons.
The indictment was issued Wednesday but remained sealed until the defendants were in custody. They are Tina Isa's father, Zein Isa, 61, who is on death row; Saif Nijmeh, 32, arrested at his St. Louis County home; Luie Nijmeh, 29, arrested at his Miamisburg, Ohio, home; and Tawfiq Musa, 43, arrested in Racine, Wis. All four are of Palestinian descent.
FBI agents investigating whether Zein Isa was involved in the PLO had bugged his family's St. Louis apartment and captured on audio tape his daughter's killing there in November 1989.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB