in obtaining a Soviet-built MiG fighter, but Abbas Hilmi was still
given a very warm reception. He provided Israeli intelligence with
important information about the Egyptian Air Force. His main use,
however, was for propaganda purposes. In widely broadcast inter-
views, he condemned the Egyptian intervention in Yemen and re-
vealed that Nasser used poison gas against the Yemeni royalists. He
was offered a well-paid job in Israel, but it was difficult for him to
get used to the Jewish state and its customs.
Hilmi rejected an offer of political asylum in Israel, where he could
remain in relative safety, and instead insisted on moving to South
America. The Mossadarranged a new identity for him, gave him a
generous sum of money to build his new life, and taught him the ba-
sics of remaining safe under his new assumed identity. However,
Hilmi committed a series of fatal errors in Buenos Aires, including
mailing a postcard from Argentina to his mother in Egypt. The way
to tracing him was soon open. He later met a young Arab woman at
a nightclub who invited him to her apartment in Buenos Aires. It was
an Egyptian trap. Egyptian secret agents lay in wait for him at the
apartment; they took him and smuggled him aboard an Egyptian
cargo vessel bound for Cairo. Hilmi was convicted of treason in an
Egyptian court and executed. See also STEALING THE MIG-21.HINDAWI AFFAIR.In April 1986, the Syrians attempted to blow up
an El Al airplane departing from London’s Heathrow Airport with a
bag of explosives taken onboard by an unwitting courier, but the plot
was foiled. The courier was dispatched by Nizar Hindawi, a Jordan-
ian of Palestinian origin who was directly controlled by the Air Force
Security Directorate headed by Syrian major general Muhammad al-
Khouli. Hindawi was convicted by a court in Great Britain, and for a
short period thereafter Britain severed its relations with Syria; the
United States also withdrew its ambassador from Damascus.
The Syrian attempt to blow up the El Al aircraft occurred after the
Mossadand Military Intelligencehad obtained information that the
chief Palestinian terrorists—George Habash, Nayef Hawatmah,
Ahmed Gibril, and Abu Nidal—were flying back from Tripoli, Libya,
to Damascus, Syria. This information was not correct, however. Four
Israeli F-16 jets forced the Gulfstream airplane to land in a military
airport in the north of Israel. The passengers where taken out of the114 • HINDAWI AFFAIR06-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:24 AM Page 114