Curse of the Achille Lauro

Reem al-Nimer is a Palestinian activist and the widow of Abu al-Abbas, the iconic leader of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF). Hailing from landed Palestinian notability, she grew up in Beirut, where she joined Yasser Arafat's Fatah Movement. Her marriage to Abu al-Abbas took her to Tunis, Damascus, Libya, and Baghdadthe city where she first met her husband in 1975 and last saw him shortly before the US invasion in 2003. Abu al-Abbas died in US custody in March, 2004.

Abu al-Abbas told his wife . . . that his intention was to carry out an honorable operation against the Israeli Army . . . . I wanted them to reach Ashdod: not to fight the passengers on board [the Achille Lauro]. [Abu al-Abbas] was to be haunted by the crime for the rest of his life. And when he died mysteriously in US custody in a Baghdad prison camp after Americas 2003 invasion, all the world remembered of Al-Abbas was a crippled man called Leon Klinghoffer. No-one cared how an apparently healthy man would die in American hands. Robert Fisk, The Independent

• Preface -- 1982-1985: Two Men with Contradictions; Something Went Horribly Wrong; Aboard the Achille Lauro; Mubarak Gives Us a Ride; Abu al-Abbas: A Rebel with a Cause; Rifaat al-Nimer & Our Family; Operation Gamal Abdul Nasser; My Life in Politics; Dark Skies; Our Time in West Africa; The Lebanese Civil War: 1975 - 1982; Life in Baghdad; The Jerusalem Sea Operation; Early Retirement; A Final Journey to Palestine; The Iraq War; Epilogue: A Note on Terror; Resources; Index.