Bassam Abu Sharif

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Bassam Abu Sharif
بسام أبو شريف
Bassam Abu Sharif in 1989
Personal details
Born	(1946-08-09) August 9, 1946 (age 78) Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine
Nationality	Palestinian
Children	Omar and Karma
Alma mater	American University of Beirut
Occupation	Former Senior Adviser to Yasser Arafat

Bassam Abu Sharif (Arabic: بسام أبو شريف; born August 9, 1946 in Jerusalem) is a former senior adviser to Yasser Arafat^[1] and leading cadre of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He was previously a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

A Marxist and an admirer of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, Abu Sharif, then a member of the PFLP, was dubbed the "face of terror" by Time magazine for his role in the Dawson's Field hijackings in 1970, when the PFLP hijacked Pan Am, Swissair, and TWA flights and blew them up in the Jordanian desert, triggering King Hussein's expulsion of the PLO from Jordan, which became known as Black September.^{[citation needed]} A fourth pair of hijackers on an El Al flight were overpowered by security guards and passengers.