Captain Ion Iordache, No. 32/II/0012309/23.07.1982, 'Memo [on a Meeting with "MARIAN"]'

Memo

At a meeting on July 23 1982, [our] source ‘MARIAN’ informed us about the following:

1. Yesterday, [on July 22 1982], he talked to Khaled el-Sheik, Ahmad al-Assad, other employees of the PLO Office in Bucharest, and Abu Doleh, about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, [and] he learned that the situation of the Palestinians is critical. Until now, [the Israelis] took 61,000 prisoners; however, there are sufficient [Palestinians] in Beirut (6,000 fighters, plus volunteers from Yemen and other Arab states) who can put up a fight with the Israelis.

Abu Doleh (short, with a low-pitch voice) is one of the leaders of al-Sai’qa and he recently arrived in our country. He said that the entire PLO leadership is in Beirut and they are perfectly safe thanks to underground bunkers, but especially thanks to the outstanding fighting of the Palestinian people, and to Beirut’s protection system (several concentric circles of mined fields), which basically prevents the Israelis from entering the city.

The PLO leadership believes that the number of casualties is already too high (40,000 deaths), so that now the existence [of the Palestinian] nation is being questioned. Although Yasser Arafat received a telegram from the Libyan leader [Gaddafi], containing some proposals for solving the conflict, [Arafat] did not reply. The same telegram was sent to Hafez al-Assad, to whom Gaddafi complained about Yasser Arafat’s silence.

The Palestinian leader delegated Abu Houl to break the siege and go to Damascus, where he talked to Hafez al-Assad, and he got back to Beirut a few days ago.

Abu Doleh did not give any details about the content of the talks [with Hafez al-Assad], but when [‘MARIAN’] asked him about how Abu Houl managed to break the siege, he replied that although there were traitors like An Ahage Ismail – the leader of the Saida army, who fled to Damascus, there are still some ‘patriots’ among the members of the Phalanges in East Beirut, who can take anyone in and out of Beirut for $20,000.

2. With respect to the July 2 1982 incidents between some Palestinian students and PLO Office employees, [our] source said that the latter were still unhappy with the Romanian authorities’ lack of initiative to catch [the students] and turn them over to the [PLO Office]. Therefore, to this day, Khaled el Sheick and Ahmed al-Assad carry weapons on them to take revenge on the [students] in question. ‘MARIAN’ said that three days prior [to his meeting] he saw Ahmed al-Assad carrying an American gun, a JVL with a barrel and six bullets, which could fire accidentally. Ahmed al-Assad said that he knew [very well] when to fire it.

- Our source provided us with this information following the instructions we provided him with.

- The people he mentioned are under the surveillance of our unit S.3, where we will file a copy of this memo.

- ‘Marian’ was instructed to follow the training we provided him with through operation ‘0906/82’.

- We suggest we publish this material in [our] bulletin.

Signed

Captain Ion Iordache